diff --git a/defaults/yacy.init b/defaults/yacy.init
index 1e1033578..1174be8df 100644
--- a/defaults/yacy.init
+++ b/defaults/yacy.init
@@ -796,6 +796,11 @@ search.excludehosth=
 # the cases of nocache, iffresh and ifexist causes an index deletion
 search.verify.delete = true
 
+# images may be treated either as documents that are shown in search results or as objects
+# that are only visible in special search environments, like image search
+search.excludeintext.image = true
+crawler.load.image = true;
+
 # remote search details
 remotesearch.maxcount = 10
 remotesearch.maxtime = 3000
diff --git a/source/net/yacy/crawler/CrawlStacker.java b/source/net/yacy/crawler/CrawlStacker.java
index 0351f0620..4c3cd42dc 100644
--- a/source/net/yacy/crawler/CrawlStacker.java
+++ b/source/net/yacy/crawler/CrawlStacker.java
@@ -336,9 +336,10 @@ public final class CrawlStacker {
 
         // check availability of parser and maxfilesize
         String warning = null;
+        boolean loadImages = Switchboard.getSwitchboard().getConfigBool("crawler.load.image", true);
         if ((maxFileSize >= 0 && entry.size() > maxFileSize) ||
             entry.url().getContentDomain() == ContentDomain.APP  ||
-            entry.url().getContentDomain() == ContentDomain.IMAGE  ||
+            (!loadImages && entry.url().getContentDomain() == ContentDomain.IMAGE) ||
             entry.url().getContentDomain() == ContentDomain.AUDIO  ||
             entry.url().getContentDomain() == ContentDomain.VIDEO ||
             entry.url().getContentDomain() == ContentDomain.CTRL) {
diff --git a/source/net/yacy/search/Switchboard.java b/source/net/yacy/search/Switchboard.java
index dc0fc71ed..07689f518 100644
--- a/source/net/yacy/search/Switchboard.java
+++ b/source/net/yacy/search/Switchboard.java
@@ -2512,10 +2512,12 @@ public final class Switchboard extends serverSwitch {
            ) {
             // get the hyperlinks
             final Map<DigestURI, String> hl = Document.getHyperlinks(documents);
+            boolean loadImages = getConfigBool("crawler.load.image", true);
+            if (loadImages) hl.putAll(Document.getImagelinks(documents));
             
             // add all media links also to the crawl stack. They will be re-sorted to the NOLOAD queue and indexed afterwards as pure links
             if (response.profile().directDocByURL()) {
-                hl.putAll(Document.getImagelinks(documents));
+                if (!loadImages) hl.putAll(Document.getImagelinks(documents));
                 hl.putAll(Document.getApplinks(documents));
                 hl.putAll(Document.getVideolinks(documents));
                 hl.putAll(Document.getAudiolinks(documents));