For most search engines, a picture is said to be worth more than a thousand words – actually, more like a billion page views a day. While there are so many ways to increase page views and visitors to a Website, the use of images is one that is often overlooked. Following Google’s revamp of its image search facility, taking advantage of the features on offer has never been more important. Although other search engines such as Bing also use enhanced image search functionalities, Google Images is still unrivalled, with over 10 billion pictures on its image databased, compared to around 250 million when it was initially launched in 2001.
The size of Google Images represents the largest image search engine so far and is constantly increasing with all kinds of media. Google realised that for a lot of searches, the best answer could not be found in text but rather in an image or a set of images hence its focus on increasing the quantity, quality and variety of images. In addition to the quality, the visual representation has been designed to be more intuitive and produce faster results which has led to a vast increase in the number of Google Image users.
Why You Should Use Images On Your Site
- Images are now one of the most popular types of content people search for on the Internet.
- Presentation of images on search engines now provide a much easier way to surf the visual Web.
- Google Images can display up to 1000 images per page (in a dense tiled layout) so that users can scroll through them all at once without having to click in and out of pages.
- The use of thumbnail preview, that pops up when a user hovers over a particular image, provides relevant information such as your Website’s address or image details to the search user.
- User-friendliness and interactivity makes image searches more attractive to users.
- The landing page displays a large image in context with the image-hosting Website visible right behind it.
Talking Point
How often do you look for images on search engines?
I know when I look for things on the internet, I usually go to images before a reference page to find out what it is. It’s just an easier way to gain understanding when you use a visual. And I think it would be wise for business to weigh in on that, because if you find an interesting image, of course you’re then going to look at the page. But will this help page-rank at all?
Anything that will bring more visitors to your site and increase your reach can only be a good thing.
Apparently, the search giant recently made some changes to Google Images. Trending or newsworthy queries will now return image results with time stamps at the lower right portion of the picture. For instance, I typed in “Google Earnings Report 2011,” and sure enough, some of the image results had time stamps on them.
Full story here: http://www.webpronews.com/google-images-search-showing-fresh-images-2011-04
Thanks for the link Francesca. I guess it is still in its testing phase but it does seem to be a really good idea.
Image is very import ant in a blogpost or in a website, it add value for the page and make it to range very high it search engine. I only search for image on the web when I need one.
Thanks for sharing, google images is something which is undervalued. Google also had a OCR recognition system for images, so it can actually read text on images, and not just the “ALT=” and image names itself, which is an added bonus. Just shows how powerful the tool is and is something that should not be overlooked.
Thanks for the comment. Very valuable point indeed.
As a newbie blogger, I was not expecting much if any traffic from google images, but it keeps coming. I was surprised at how dated articles still generate hits because people click on the image.
First thing that i would like to mention in the first place is, in spite of providing the best search result for both text and images Google’s image result page is not that user friendly now. People from all around the globe criticised it. But anyhow this feature of displaying 1000 images per page is beneficial for the web masters. As the matter of fact a quality picture appeals more than a big piece of content.
I actually havent thought about google images for traffic ever before. Bit stupid of me really, considering how widely it is used by people.
I’ll take this into consideration in the future, cheers.
People are more likely to go deeper into the search results on images than a typical web results search. I guess because of the ability to quickly scan the results.
I’m not sure about the OCR recognition technology, however, it is still a way to generate some traffic.
I always use Google Image when getting pictures for my site. I especially like the More Sizes feature so I can just see the picture I want and get the size that works best for my site. I also like how with Google Images, so many pictures load quickly so it’s a time-saver as well!
Google’s image search is not powerful to attract visitors right now, but it going to be happen soon a powerful search option.
I completely agree.