Google Image Search Gets an Update

Google has revamped their Image Search, displaying larger better quality images right within the search results. The update also introduced an easier and faster way to navigate photos in order by using your keyboard. The new display is similar to viewing an Image search on an iPad.

At first, images still display in a thumbnail within the results.

However, now if you want to expand an image it will open in the center of the page. Moving on to the next image in the list can be done using the 'Arrow' keys or by simply clicking on a different picture in the results. If an image is selected you also see image details right within the window including size, original site source, and page title. You can also Visit page, View original image, and Image details.

The new image search is great for searchers, webmasters on the other hand are not too happy with many of them seeing pretty severe drops in traffic from image search. With full-sized images available right within the results there is not much reason for people solely looking for the images to visit the site it's hosted on. On the other hand, while you don't get as many random people hitting your site via the images, your traffic counts do not include people who never intended to come to your site for anything other than an image, so your stats are more sound.

Regardless of how webmasters feel the new image search is an improvement for searchers and we like the results.