There is much more to Google Images search than meets the eye. It has evolved over time to make searching for images on the web as easy as possible and packs some pretty serious algorithms on the back-end. Google has an index of over 10 billion images. Out of the nine subspecies of leopards, each has a distinct pattern of spots. Google Images can recognize the difference, returning just leopards of a particular subspecies. That’s pretty amazing.
There is still a way to go in search for images and video on the web, so Google is redesigning their image search interface to match the “scope and beauty of this fast-growing visual web.” The new design includes:
- Dense tiled layout designed to make it easy to look at lots of images at once. We want to get the app out of the way so you can find what you’re really looking for.
- Instant scrolling between pages, without letting you get lost in the images. You can now get up to 1,000 images, all in one scrolling page. And we’ll show small, unobtrusive page numbers so you don’t lose track of where you are.
- Larger thumbnail previews on the results page, designed for modern browsers and high-res screens.
- A hover pane that appears when you mouse over a given thumbnail image, giving you a larger preview, more info about the image and other image-specific features such as “Similar images.”
- Once you click on an image, you’re taken to a new landing page that displays a large image in context, with the website it’s hosted on visible right behind it. Click anywhere outside the image, and you’re right in the original page where you can learn more about the source and context.
- Optimized keyboard navigation for faster scrolling through many pages, taking advantage of standard web keyboard shortcuts such as Page Up / Page Down. It’s all about getting you to the info you need quickly, so you can get on with actually building that treehouse or buying those flowers.
Of course, Google is all about that ad revenue and they’ve come up with a way to make those ads more relevant to your image searches. These are called Google Image Search Ads. They will appear just like most of the Google ads you’re used to, except the advertiser will be able to include an image along with the text. According to director of search products Ben Ling, “This allows you to reach hundreds of million of users who are searching on Google on a daily basis.” Google image search is already getting over a billion pageviews a day and I suspect the placement and relevancy of these ads may make for higher click-through rates than your standard text ads.
via Ooh! Ahh! Google Images presents a nicer way to surf the visual web