Bing Image Search Update Clamps Down on Duplicate Images Big Time

Bing has been very active this month with updates to their search engine and Image Search hasn't been neglected. One of the first things you'll notice when trying the updated image search is how smooth the actions are when mousing over an image, like automatically generating a larger preview pop-up.

The new design is far more responsive and with larger image thumbnails and less white space between them, Bing can now fit more images in the same space. Related search suggestions are also now generated for most phrases, and over on the right sidebar you'll find related topics and trending image searches.

Bing's new image search filters allows you to refine your search by size, color, layout and even faces.

SEO for Image Search...

We've noticed that Bing has really improved on their duplicate image detection feature with these updates. Many images - such as the one for the new Microsoft Surface Tablet are grouped together even though they have different file names and sizes. When you click the more sizes icon as shown below, a new page showing all the variations in sizes with the same image is displayed.

This is a very important change to note in regards to image optimization as it's telling us it's no longer good enough to have unique file names, or file sizes as duplicate image detection has been improving greatly at Bing. That's a big benefit to relevancy as no one wants to look at a bunch of the same images when doing a search.

On the other hand for content creators, it strikes home the requirement to have uni...