Google Images is a search service owned by Google that allows users to search the Web for image content. It was introduced in 2001 due to a demand for pictures of Jennifer Lopez's green Versace dress that the regular Google search couldn't handle. In 2011, reverse image search functionality was added to it, and in 2012, a controversy arose over its alleged censoring of pornographic images from its search results. The keywords for a reverse image search in Google Images are based on the filename of the image, the link text pointing to the image, and text adjacent to the image. When searching for an image, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed. When the user clicks on a thumbnail, the image is played in a box over the website that it came from. The user can then close the box and browse the website, or view the full-sized image.
Video Google Images
History
Beginnings and expansion (2001-2011)
In 2000, Google Search results had been limited to simple pages of text with links. Google's developers worked on developing this further, and they realized that an image search tool was required to answer "the most popular search query" they had seen to date: Jennifer Lopez in her exotic green Versace dress. As a result of this, Google Image Search was born. By 2001, 250 million images were indexed in Image Search. This number would eventually grow to 1 billion images by 2005 and 10 billion by 2010.
In early 2007, Google implemented an updated interface for the image search, where information about an image, such as resolution and URL, was hidden until the user moved the mouse over its thumbnail. This was discontinued after a few weeks.
On October 27, 2009, Google Images added a feature to its image search that can be used to find similar images.
On July 20, 2010, Google made another update to the interface of Google Images, which reimplemented the hiding of image details until mouse over.
In May 2011, Google introduced a sort by subject feature for a visual category scheme overview of a search query.
A month later, in June 2011, Google Images added a Search by Image feature which allowed for reverse image searches directly in the image search-bar without third-party add-ons. This feature allows users to search for an image by dragging and dropping one onto the search bar, uploading one, or copy-pasting a URL that points to an image into the search bar.
New algorithm and accusations of censorship (2012-present)
On December 11, 2012, Google Images' search engine algorithm was changed once again, in the hopes of preventing pornographic images from appearing when non-pornographic search terms were used. According to Google, pornographic images would still appear as long as the term searched for was specifically pornographic; otherwise, they would not appear. While Google stated explicitly that they were "not censoring any adult content", it was immediately noted that even when entering terms such as "blow job", or "boob," no explicit results were shown. The only alternative option was to turn on an even stricter filter which would refuse to search for the aforementioned terms whatsoever. It was also noted that users could no longer exclude keywords from their search as before.
Maps Google Images
Search by Image feature
Google Images has a Search by Image feature for performing reverse image searches. Unlike traditional image retrieval, this feature removes the need to type in keywords and terms into the Google search box. Instead, users search by submitting an image as their query. Results may include similar images, web results, pages with the image, and different resolutions of the image.
The precision of Search by Image's results is higher if the search image is more popular. Additionally, Google Search by Image will offer a "best guess for this image" based on the descriptive metadata of the results.
Algorithm
The general steps that Search by Image takes to get from a submitted image to returned search results are as follows:
- Analyze image - The submitted image is analyzed to find identifiers such as colors, points, lines, and textures.
- Generate query - These distinct features of the image are used to generate a search query.
- Match image - The query is matched against the images in Google's back end.
- Return results - Google's search and match algorithms return matching and visually similar images as results to the user.
See also
- TinEye
- Picsearch
- Yahoo Image Search
- Bing Images
- Image search
References
External links
- Google Image Search website
- Google Image Labeler Beta
- The Official Google Blog
- Advanced Google Images Search Tips and Tricks
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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