If you are searching for the recent Google image search update, your search ends here. Many must have missed the November 2020 update of Google image search to eliminate duplicate images to display relevant and visually distinct images. But the February 11 update on Twitter by Google on adding buttons for relevant images with information on the image search improvement from November got the attention of SEO specialists and even the billions of Google searches. It is because many SEO experts consider images to be the unsung heroes for traffic generation. Hence check out the new Google image search update and how it could help you and your business be atop the SERP rankings.

Google images evolution & importance

Google introduced web search for images in 2001 with only a quarter of a billion images. But within 2010, it had over 10 billion indexed images, and over one billion images clicked daily. In 2011, it brought the reverse image search where anyone can upload images or enter an image URL to search similar images. In the last few years, it has also contributed to the enhancement of organic SERPs and image SEOs to achieve better rankings in the image search. Also, if the Google traffic is 55% for google.com and 24.7% for mail.google.com, 10.1% is for images.google.com. Hence Google image search has become a means for SEOs for increasing the visibility of a site holistically and sustainably. It provides both the opportunity to increase the site's uniqueness with relevance for specific keywords and for a good ranking on Google images to increase traffic and contribute to conversions. So it becomes critical to know about the Google image search update.

The Google images update details & importance

With billions of images available in Google images, many get bored to find duplicate pictures appearing frequently. It went to a stage of getting even irritated if the said images are not even relevant for your search and you do not even like it. But from November 2020, many must have noticed or failed to notice that these kinds of repeated similar images were not present anymore in the Google images. Because of Google Images search rolling out a new algorithm to reduce all these similar images and replace them with relevant and visually distinct images. And Google confirmed it on February 11, 2021, in its Twitter handle. Also, there were additional features for searching relevant images instead of checking over thousands of images that are not relevant to the keyword. Check out the changes by Google Image Search update for relevant image search, which are visually distinct also.

Google Image Search update changes

There were three tweets from Google SearchLiason on February 11 that brought welcome changes to Google Images Search. The first tweet is about the update made in November to reduce the duplicate images for displaying relevant ones yet visually distinct. The second one was about a query in the search engine relating to different things. It cites the example of jaguar, which could mean either an animal or a car or animal, sports team, movie name, and many others. The tweet informed about the improvement to show images only to the alternative meanings. The third tweet was to inform about the buttons that can be visible on the top of the image search results for allowing anyone to refine the query to a specific meaning for easily focusing on the relevant images.

Google never fails to surprise with its periodic updates to continue to hold the lion's share of over 90% of all online searches globally. This new Google Images Search update is another feather on its cap to improve image search and image SEO for better SERPs for businesses to grow to new heights.

Dev Bhushan

Dev Bhushan

Digital Marketing Specialist at SEMReseller

  • SEO
31 May 2021

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