Are you looking at side-view games or 3/4 games? Don't rely on Google to tell the difference.
Plus, a lot of artists simply get it wrong, since 3/4 isn't a common angle for humans to see the world from xP When people post their 3/4 sprites for critique, almost always the main critique is that they accidentally did a side-view. It makes sense that they would, we're all used to seeing people from the side/eye-level.
It's true that 3/4 characters are usually drawn with the camera actually a little bit lower (this is the case even for environment objects, not just characters) since that usually looks better, but if it's too low, then the characters look like they're lying on the ground rather than standing on it. This is an issue seen even in some published games, and can easily happen as the result of the characters being drawn in isolation from the environment. Always work with a mockup instead of drawing elements on their own.