20 Best Sites with High Quality Free Stock Photos

In today's online business world, tons of people have a need for quality free stock photos for their blogs, company websites, and everything in between.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of businesses who are settling for the corny stock photo of yesteryear, either because they don't know their options or think they are too hard to find.

That's where the good news comes in: good stock photos don't have to be expensive or hidden deep in the crevices of the internet. In our digital age, there's plenty of solid material out there - if you know where to look. Read for more good news? We have your back, and have taken the hassle out of finding these stellar stock images.

We're confident that this collection of resources will help you find exactly what you're looking for, whether it's adorable animals, minimalist interior design, and anything in between.

20 of the Best Sites to Download Royalty Free Stock Photos

1. Negative Space

One of the best things about Negative Space is that they are constantly updating their free stock photos every week. With Negative Space, you never need to worry about copyright restrictions, so you can use them for your project without having to jump through hoops.

Negative Space has a large selection to choose from, and the interface is very user-friendly. It's easy to sort through the photos in order to find exactly what you need.

2. Death to the Stock Photo

The founders of Death to Stock are dedicated to making beautiful photos more accessible. They knew how important it is for those running blogs and online businesses to not spend all of their profit on images for their websites.

The format is simple: just give them your email to get a new bundle of great stock pictures monthly, then just use the ones that apply to your current project. Easy!

For businesses with some extra funds to invest, Death to Stock has an affordable Premium membership which gives you access to their entire library of photos (instead of just the pre-selected ones they send), plus some of the profits from the membership are used to further the resource by financing photographers and their projects.

3. Picjumbo

Picjumbo is unique in that all of the photos come from a sole photographer, Viktor, who shares his photos from his home in the Czech Republic.

He updates the selection of photos really frequently, so there is always a fresh batch of high-quality graphics to download. To take it a step further, Viktor offers affordable paid packages for businesses that use stock images frequently. He also has a nifty plugin for the Photoshop and Sketch programs for just under 8 bucks.

4. Stokpic

Stokpic is another example of a photographer deciding to give away his photos for free. Ed Gregory decided to share 10 new photos bi-weekly that you can use in any way that suits you.

The easy user interface allows you to browse his categories like architecture, fashion, and nature.

5. Kaboompics

The site's creator, Karolina, is a Polish web designer. She is the creative engine behind this extensive stockpile of high-quality pictures. The images address a wide variety of topics. As with the rest of the sites, users can use Karolina's pictures for anything they need.

A quick visit to the About page of the site shows how big of a reach it has; during our visit to the page, the Image Downloads ticker stood at a whopping 5,051,906.

6. Startup Stock Photos

Startup Stock Photos is a company that operates on simplicity. They share pictures they're taking anyway in order to help businesses find a cheaper way to gain traction online.

You don't have to be a startup business to utilize their images, which is fine by them. The images are free, but they wouldn't say no to a donation.

7. Freerange

Freerange photos derive from a community of in-house as well as external talent.

At Freerange, their principles and motivations are clear: "Freerange Stock was formed with the goal to provide quality stock photos for commercial and non-commercial use. For free. We feel that free stock photos can be good photos." Can't argue with that.

8. Libreshot

Every photographer brings his/her own unique style to this fun brand of art. At Libreshot lives a very unique collection of free stock photos.

9. Fancy Crave

The images on Fancy Crave come without copyright restrictions, and they're free of all the corniness of typical stock photos.

Attribution is not legally required, but they note that it is recommended if possible.

Fancy Craves selects two fresh photos to upload daily, keeping things current and providing beautiful photos to suit all needs.

10. Unsplash

The creativity of the title matches the creativity of their photos. They have pages and pages of quirky, one-of-a-kind images for you to choose from.

As you've likely come to expect, these images are able to be used without any copyright restrictions.

11. StockSnap

The photos on StockSnap are of superb quality and most of them are especially great for use as backgrounds.

The selection is so interesting and versatile that it's easy to find yourself on page 50 of photos all of a sudden. And yes - they're free.

12. SplitShire

SplitShire is an Italy-based organization that offers pages of incredible free photos for you to use at will. Their philanthropic mission is simply: "Helping you to be awesome out there with great content."

13. Life of Pix

Life of Pix was created by Leeroy Advertising Agency (Montreal, Canada) and they have a real knack for supplying great pictures. Naturally, these cool graphics are fine for you to use - no strings attached.

If pictures aren't enough for your unique project, they have a sister company called Life of Vids.

14. Pexels

Unlike most of the other listed sites, Pexels handpicks their favorite photos from a pool of free image sources to ensure that you're seeing only top-tier work.

The images that survive their rigorous selection process are then able to be used in any way you see fit. The site also makes searching for your perfect stock photo as easy as possible.

15. HubSpot

HubSpot is a bit different from the rest; there's somewhat of a shortage of high-quality free stock photos available to those who need solely business-themed graphics. Hubspot has a healthy selection of corporate-style images that are perfect for a professional project.

16. Gratisography

The images on Gratisography lie a little further on the wacky side. These creations come from photographer Ryan McGuire, who is known for seeing things a bit differently. His work is significantly quirkier than some other sites (i.e. fake moustaches, pineapples wearing glasses, gummy bears in cereal) but you never know when you project might just call for something out of the ordinary.

17. Jay Mantri

Jay Mantri is yet another good-guy photographer who chose to share his amazing photos with the world. His work is quite sophisticated, and a lot of shots leave you wondering how he did it.

This is one artist we'd say to go check out anyway, even if you don't have a specific need for scenic, high-class images.

18. ISO Republic

ISO's Republic's mission is to supply only the best digital images for online businesses of all kinds.

One visit to their site will tell you immediately that they are serious about the quality of their content. The photos are top-notch quality, and while the subject matter varies, they all maintain a similar level of sophistication.

Similar to some previously listed sites, you have an option on ISO to register for their email list to get extra content not posted on the site.

19. New Old Stock

This free stock photo site embodies classic elegance. They deal exclusively in old photos, usually in black and white. Web designers and history buffs alike will enjoy their large compilation of antique photos. Though there are some unique challenges to the redistribution of old pictures, the site only posts those that have no evidence of copyright issues.

Their rules are slightly more stringent than other sites, so just make sure to read up on it before using these photos for commercial purposes.

20. Pixabay

Pixabay is our final choice of free stock photo collection. It has a great archive of plenty of public domain photos (so you can use them without worrying about copyright issues). Thank goodness they have an intuitive search mechanism since they have just shy of a million awesome graphics.

Unlike some other sites, it offers a more advanced search that allows you to filter your query as much as you need so you can always find exactly what you want.

How to Use AdSense Custom Channels to Increase RPM

If you want to boost the AdSense revenue, then you have to try and use all the tools at your disposal to increase the RPM and take your income to new heights. AdSense custom channels are some of the best tools that you can use in this regards. The best thing about these custom channels is that advertisers love them and you can easily adapt them to your needs!

What are AdSense custom channels?

When you hear about Google AdSense custom channels, you will most likely be confused in regards to what they are and what they do. But despite the name that can confuse some people, the reason why they were created is that they offer a really good value for AdSense users. Simply put, these custom channels are designed as a reporting tool, and they enable you to manage your ad inventory without that much of a hassle.

You can also use them to turn the ad inventory into a solution that advertisers can target. As a result, you will be able to boost the AdSense revenue in no time. Aside from that, you can also generate a lot of competition for the advertisers. Of course, you do need to have a good amount of traffic to be appealing to the advertisers. But if you use this tool adequately, the overall results can be downright unique. The custom channels are designed to work with a variety of content hubs as well as publishers. But of course, you have to put all your knowledge to the test.

AdSense custom channels A/B testing and analytics

In case you want to boost your revenue with custom channels, you will have to figure out which are the best ads you have, and then you add them into custom channels. You can find the Custom Channels in the Advanced Reports section.

Here you can filter the type of ads you want to track, and you can also view an overview, active views, engagements, clicks and even custom information.

Thanks to the AdSense custom channels, you will get to track things like page performance for that ad, what surrounding content was the best, ad placement results, ad size performance and other relevant info. All these things do add up very well, and they are bound to bring you a unique and distinct set of features.

A/B testing is also easy to do with AdSense custom channels. You track the performance of a text ad against another text ad, or you can opt for a more complex ad test. In fact, you can even make image to text ad comparison if you want. The idea here is to use the power of reports to see which type of ad delivers the best performance.

Depending on your niche, some types of ads will work better when compared to others. So, the idea is to pick the right one that suits your needs. It's the best approach and one that does pay off immensely in the end.

How can you track what blog portion delivers the best revenue?

This is a very good question and a tricky one to answer as well. There are many reasons why you may be unable to answer this adequately. However, it all comes down to a single comparison. For example, you have a site about technology and another one about healthy eating. Both of them are blogs, but the healthy eating one delivers a much better RPM when compared to the technology one.

Obviously, when you do A/B testing and see this, you will most likely focus on creating more healthy eating content and less tech content. But your task is to figure out what went wrong with the technology blog too. You can use the power of AdSense custom channels to figure out what caused that issue. Studying the performance over time will help you see what is wrong and this way you can adapt the situation to your advantage.

Creating a targetable ad inventory with AdSense custom channels

AdSense custom channels offer your online assets to the advertisers so that they can be targeted without a problem. Basically, the companies that have a video ad about their phone repair services will want an ad slot on your phone-related pages, not on the homepage or anything else. The idea is to opt for targeting, and that's where AdSense custom channels excel very well. Besides, advertisers have a limited budget, so they do want to get the very best results from you.

What type of benefits do you get from this? First, you will see that allowing advertiser targeted ads will bring in more competition for ad location and better performing ads. You will also work with advertisers that are knowledgeable and know what they want. Google said they select the best performing ads for your page, so obviously this will help you as well. Plus, advertisers can do smart pricing and earn more money by getting targeted audiences. Simply put, everyone wins with this type of approach, and that's what manages to deliver the very best outcome.

How can you set up AdSense custom channels?

You need to figure out what you want to measure and share to the advertisers. Basically, you create an ad unit, and you can add that to the AdSense custom channels. You can add multiple ones if you want, that is up to you to make the right pick.

Simply put, you go to My Ads in the AdSense console > Content, and then you select Custom channels. Here you will have to press the New Custom Channel Button. Add a name to the custom channel, and then you can select the ad units that you want. It's important to let these ad units targetable; you will have a small option related to targeting under this.

You can also remove ad placements if necessary. If you want to see the performance, you just need to go to Performance Reports > Advanced Reports > Custom Channels.

How to optimize ad placement channels?

There are some methods you can use to achieve this. Edit some of the best performing channels and as we mentioned above, mark them as targetable. This will offer you a list with some interesting features. You will see the fields that are shown to advertisers. You can also pick where ads appear, and if necessary, the ad location can be for multiple places if you want.

At this point, you will also need to opt for a description of your website, and you should also tell the advertisers why they should be interested in placing ads on your site. Make sure that you harness all your copywriting power. It's not an easy thing to do, but it may be able to pay off extremely well in the end.

A good idea is not to make all your channels targetable. What you want is to target solely the ones that are valid for you, as that's what will make things shine for sure. It's a very important idea to try and focus on the most important channels at first. If this does work very well for you, then you can adapt it to the most important channels as you see fit.

Keep testing

It's always important to keep testing, because the more you do that, the better the results will end up being for you in the end. AdSense custom channels are designed to be an analytical tool, so it doesn't matter how many channels you have. If you have around 500, that's great, if not, experiment and try to create as many channels as you can.

You shouldn't expect each channel to deliver its best performance. It will take quite a lot of time and effort to adapt everything to suit your needs. But the idea here is that the more you focus on interacting with the audience, the better the results will be for sure. As long as you know how to handle all of this, the experience will be great, and your site will benefit from that.

Plus, you shouldn't expect AdSense custom channels to deliver the best possible value right off the bat. These things do tend to take quite a bit of time for them to work adequately. At first, it may be a bit simple, but as time passes you will see that the results get increasingly better.

The reason is simple, it will just make things a lot better for you, and the AdSense custom channels performance will increase too. Plus, you get to learn what's wrong and opt for what is meaningful. While it can take some time and effort to set up everything adequately, AdSense custom channels do work very well. So, try to create and adapt AdSense custom channels to your needs, then the AdSense RPM will increase exponentially!

Google April Fools' Day 2017

April Fools' Day should probably be called Google Fools' Day, since there are so many Google hoaxes.

Google Japan developed a "bubble wrap" version of the Japanese keyboard. "The Google Japanese input bubble wrap version is a keyboard that realizes 'I want to press in my mind, I want to keep pressing'," according to Google Translate.

Another product for your smart home? Meet Google Gnome, "a voice-activated, hands-free tool designed to make backyard living effortless. Need to know what animal is squeaking in your bushes? Stay still and ask Gnome what sound an opossum makes. Running low on birdseed? That’s where Gnome comes in. You can even use Gnome's proprietary high-intensity lasers to trim your hedges into whatever shape your heart desires."

The Chrome OS team brings the most popular mobile accessories to the Chromebook, which already blurs the line between mobile and desktop. Chromebook Groupie Stick, Chromebook Cardboard, Chromebook Workout Armband will soon be available in the Google Store. "To take advantage of beautiful, high-resolution displays, as well as great photo editing apps, we've carefully engineered the first Chromebook-sized selfie stick. Never again will you miss the perfect groupie."

Haptic Helpers make VR even more immersive. "We're taking VR to the next level with Haptic Helpers. Using a modest set of everyday tools, these VR virtuosos can simulate more than 10,000 unique experiences, all from the comfort of your own home. Smell the roses. Listen to the ocean. Feel a fluffy dog!"

You can now play the classic arcade game MS. PAC-MAN in Google Maps. "Avoid Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Sue as you swerve the streets of real places around the world. But eat the pac-dots fast, because this game will only be around for a little while." Just go to the Google Maps site or open the Google Maps app for Android or iOS and click or tap MS. PAC-MAN at the bottom.

Google Cloud Platform expands to Mars. "By opening a dedicated extraterrestrial cloud region, we're bringing the power of Google’s compute, network, and storage to the rest of the solar system, unlocking a plethora of possibilities for astronomy research, exploration of Martian natural resources and interplanetary life sciences. This region will also serve as an important node in an extensive network throughout the solar system. Our first interplanetary data center — affectionately nicknamed 'Ziggy Stardust' — will open in 2018," mentions Google.

Google Netherlands came up with Google Wind, a machine learning technology that controls the weather. "The Netherlands has many windmills, some no longer in use, we can connect to Google Cloud Platform. So we use the existing Dutch infrastructure, machine learning, weather patterns to control the network of windmills when rain is approaching. The first test results are very promising: we seem to be able to provide sun and clear skies for everyone in the Netherlands," mentions Google Netherlands blog.

Google's search app for iOS is now optimized for cats and dogs. "On the Google app for iOS, you can now use 3D Touch on the app icon or head to settings and select I'm Feeling Woof or I'm Feeling Meow to let your dogs and cats get info on topics they care about—whether that means squeaky toys or a bowl of milk!"

Google also launched Google Play for Pets, a new category of Android games designed for cats, dogs and other pets.

Google Translate's Word Lens feature supports a new language: Heptapod B, the alien language from the movie "Arrival". "The challenge with understanding Heptapod B is its nonlinear orthography. Fortunately, Google's neural machine translation system employs an encoder/decoder system that internally represents sentences as high-dimensional vectors. These vectors map well to the non-linear orthography of the Heptapod language and they are really the enabling technical factor in translating Heptapod B."

Gmail Blocks JavaScript Attachments

If you try to send a JavaScript attachment using Gmail or if you want to download a .js attachment, you'll get a new anti-virus warning: "Blocked for security reasons", "1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled".

.JS has been added to the long list of file types that are blocked by Gmail for security reasons. The full list: .ADE, .ADP, .BAT, .CHM, .CMD, .COM, .CPL, .EXE, .HTA, .INS, .ISP, .JAR, .JS (NEW), .JSE, .LIB, .LNK, .MDE, .MSC, .MSI, .MSP, .MST, .NSH .PIF, .SCR, .SCT, .SHB, .SYS, .VB, .VBE, .VBS, .VXD, .WSC, .WSF, .WSH. "To prevent against potential viruses, Gmail doesn't allow you to attach certain types of files, including: certain file types (listed above), including their compressed form (like .gz or .bz2 files) or when found within archives (like .zip or .tgz files), documents with malicious macros, archives whose listed file content is password protected, archives whose content includes a password protected archive."

The GSuite Blog informs that "for inbound mail, senders will get a bounce message explaining why the email was blocked. If you still need to send .js files for legitimate reasons, you can use Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, or other storage solutions to share or send your files."

You can still send JavaScript files using Gmail if you change the extension. What about downloading old .js attachments? Try the workarounds from this post.

Google Image Search Shows Colorful Suggestions

Google Image Search has a different way to display suggestions: it now shows a long list of colorful boxes with related searches. You can click one or more boxes to dynamically refine search results.

For example, when searching for [sportswear], Google shows suggestions like: [women basketball], [tennis], [badminton], [golf], [volleyball], [nike woman], [alexander wang], [adidas], [fashion], [performance], [vintage], [trendy], [urban], [school], [gym], [90's], [70's], [vogue], [luxe], [avant garde], [korean], [italian], [french] and more. It's interesting to notice that each category of suggestions has a different color.

Here's the old interface, which had fewer suggestions and displayed thumbnails next to suggestions:

Google Image Search Starts Playing YouTube Videos

Google Image Search's mobile interface tests a new feature that starts playing snippets from a YouTube video at the top of the search results page. It's not disclosed as an ad, there's no sound and you can't stop or hide the video, which continues to play on repeat.

Right now, the experiment seems to be limited to fashion-related queries like [men jackets], [lookbook], [winter outfit], which match videos from YouTube channels like New Look and River Island. "New Look is a South African-owned British global fashion retailer with a chain of high street shops. (...) The chain sells womenswear, menswear, and clothing for teens," according to Wikipedia.

Google only shows labels like: "New Look on YouTube", even though this looks like an experimental ad format. I hope it will never become a regular feature, as it's pretty annoying and it wastes Internet bandwidth.

YouTube Desktop Notifications, Now For Everyone

It looks like YouTube's notification experiment is now a regular feature and you can no longer disable it by clearing cookies. When sign in to your Google account, YouTube's desktop site no longer shows Google+ notifications in the navigation bar: it replaces them with YouTube notifications.

"Your notifications live here. Subscribe to your favorite channels to get notified about their latest videos," informs the new notification box.