Google Labs has announced the arrival of a new experimental product to extend their image searching capabilities, which they are calling “Similar Images“.
Similar Images is a function that lets users sort the results of an image search more effectively than ever before, allowing you to search images that are visually linked to the original search result.
For example, if you search for the word “Seal”, there are multiple “types” of image availble – for both the animal, and for the singer:
When you select an image of a Seal (the animal) and click the “Similar Images” option, you are now given a number of images that are similar and related to this:
And when you select a picture of Seal (the Singer), you are given some similar images of him:
This helps users to find the images that they are looking for, and rather than refining the search by using additional words to identify different pictures, you can request to be shown visually similar images to the original result.
This just goes to show that Google will continue to innovate despite the economic downturn and is still looking for ways to improve and refine it’s service further. It remains to be seen if this is rolled out to the main image search functionality and whether or not this has any impact on SEO for image search.
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