Google Search is constantly updated in different perspectives. Last year alone, Google ran more than 200,000 experiments that resulted in 2,400+ changes to search. Recently Google marked their 20th anniversary and provided some more information on their updates to Google Image Search.
- Advancements in computer vision now enable Google to extract concepts from images. They model hundreds of millions of fine-grained concepts for every image and video that Google has in the index. For example, an image of a tiger might generate concepts like “feline,” “animal” or “big cat.” This lets Google identify a picture by looking at its pixels, without needing to be told by the words on a page. Read the full story…
- Ranking in Google Image Search is also updated:
- the (topical) authority of a web page is now a more important signal in the ranking,
- Google also prioritizes fresher content, so you’re more likely to visit a site that has been updated recently,
- Google now prioritizes sites where the image is central to the page, and higher up on the page,
- starting this week, Google will also show more context around images, including captions that show you the title of the webpage where each image is published. This is critical to help you understand the page behind the image. Google will also suggest related search terms at the top of the page for more guidance.
3. Starting Sep 27th, Google has added Creator and Credit metadata whenever present to images on Google Images. To see this information on Google Images, you can click on the “Image Credits” link to view the metadata fields. Over the coming weeks, they will also add Copyright Notice metadata. Also in partnership with CEPIC and IPTC, Google hopes to create better usage guidance for photographers, photo agencies, and publishers to include copyright and attribution information in image metadata. Read the full story …
For more on how to best implement IPTC metadata, refer to the IPTC Guidelines.