Yesterday Google started rolling out its improvements to Google Images which now allows up to 1,000 images to be displayed in a single search page. This new website technology is called ‘infinite scroll’ which allows for fewer clicks and a faster ability to find the image you are looking for.
When scrolling over any image, a preview box pops up with detail about the size, name, and URL link to the image. Having this information only visible when scrolling over the image allows them to be grouped closely together so you can get a much bigger overview of what is available based on your search query.
Doing a test query for the term ‘caribbean‘ will show you an example of how new results are displayed.
Tip for seeing more results: Use the zoom feature on your web browser by hitting Ctrl + – (CMD + – on a MAC) this allows you to zoom out and see more results without scrolling.
For Web designers and content creators, this new release is fantastic for finding images to use on your site, concepts, etc. Copyright laws are still in effect however.
According to Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, the image search technology of Google has not been updated since 2001. Many competitors such as Bing have capitalized on the ability to search for images faster and more conveniently. Google’s new release however has reset the bar on image search.
This is a vast improvement… who says Google can’t learn anything from Bing? 😉