Mountain View, California — In a latest push to empower its user with more knowledge, search engine titan Google has released some interesting details on its Inside Search blog that it has made improvements to its search by image tool that will improve the accuracy of results more useful and help users find more insightful information about what you are looking for.
When you are using Google’s Search by Image, which is similar to TinEye-style reverse image search tool that has been around since last year, is getting one of the coolest features–that is dragging or uploading an image into the search box and letting the company’s computer vision technology find results based on matches.
In a blog post, the company has described the tweaks that is meant to improve the “best guess” text it generates for the image and an expanded format that lets users see the text around matching images. It will also help marketers producing original visual content get both the credit (and traffic) for branded graphics and images shared across the web.
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Credit: (Google) Click to enlarge…
Here is what Google Software Engineer Sean O’Malley had to say about this today:
“Finding more information about an image is the most common use of Search by Image. Very often this information is found on websites that contain either your image or images that look like it. We have made recent improvements to our freshness, so when photos of major news stories start appearing on the Internet, you can often find the news stories associated with those photos within minutes of the stories being posted. We have also expanded our index so you can find more sites that contain your image and information related to it.”
Most importantly, with the recent launch of Knowledge Graph and general improvements to search as a whole will help Google process an image more effectively and find context within images. That means if you drag in an image or link one from elsewhere, Google will see if it has an entry for its best guess and display it beside the other results.
According to the blog post, Google has discovered that consumers normally use Search by Image to locate the origin of a photo. For those engaged in content marketing with a focus on infographics and other visuals, more contextual search will significantly enhance the ability of Search by Image to drive relevant traffic.
In addition, visual content’s value to a website is growing by leaps and bounds as search engines become smarter. Previously, images of any kind offered minimal SEO value, which often meant they were left out of content marketing campaigns that aimed at driving search visibility on top of user engagement.
As Google continues its relentless endeavor to make its service more effective, processing results with a focus on context and user intent is critical to search’s evolution. Besides, improvements by Google to standard search and its other associated search tools have made them increasingly valuable, especially in terms of positioning a brand as a thought leader.
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