A New Look for Direct Links

UPDATE 6/22/17: Thanks to everyone who has sent in their feedback about our latest direct image test! At time of writing, we’ve decided to pause the test described below in order to continue with bug fixes and tweaks. We’ll keep you posted with any new updates on Imgur products right here on the blog.

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We wanted to let you know that we’re testing some updates to the way we’re displaying direct images. Over the next few weeks, you might see images that look something like this:

We’re doing this for a few reasons, the primary one being that we want to make it really easy for people to discover other entertaining content that’s hosted on Imgur by including links to other streams of content. We’re also displaying the viewcount and a link to download the image.

Imgur is a different company today than the one we were when we first started out as just an image host nearly 9 years ago. We’re glad that there are a lot of people who use our image-hosting features to share images on other sites, but our focus these days is on the Imgur community and the awesome stuff that gets shared on Imgur. We’ve seen this stuff make people laugh, teach something new, and even bring strangers together, and we think there’s an opportunity to bring that fun to even more people.

We know some of you will be unhappy and upset with this move, and that’s never a great thing to hear. We really do believe, however, this is the right move for us and Imgur users.

While we’re testing this new approach, we’re sure to run into some bumps along the way. We’d love to hear if you’ve found any bugs, encountered any issues, or have any useful feedback that you think might help us shape the product. Feel free to reach out to us any time at Imgur Help.

Many thank yous to everyone who has given their valuable feedback to get us this far! We couldn’t do it without you.