Google Images Gets Revamped Interface, More Relevant Results

Google launched a redesigned Google Images page on Tuesday, with an improved landing page and what the company said was more relevant search results.

The most noticeable changes? The elimination of the text or "cruft" from the search results page, leaving a mosaic of images. Now, Google Images will generate 1,000 results per page, which will be accessible through an "infinite scroll" function that adds more results as a user scrolls down the page.

In addition, Google will be transitioning from text-based ads on the page to a more image-based ad format, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. Interestingly, that also means that Google may be transitioning away from strictly text-based ads.



Google has already started to roll the page out, and it's available to about 10 percent of users. By the end of the week, all users should have access, Google executives said. For now, the site will be for desktop PCs only, running Chrome, Safari, Firefox 3.0 and up, and Internet Explorer 7 and 8.

"We really think this user interface is the best in the world, with the interface stripping it down and highlighting the image," Mayer said. Executives also said that they're continuing to iterate the interface.

In 2001, Google launched Images as a beta site, with 250 million photos that were indexed, according to Ben Ling, director of search. By 2005, 1 billion images were added, and today, over 10 billion images are online, Ling said. Google records over a billion page views per day on Google Images.

Google does not have an explicit tool to search by time right now, as Google has done with Google social search. That will be added over time, Ling said.

The elimination of the text "cruft" also means that the metadata will only show up as a user hovers over the image result. Google will maintain some of the other search options that are within Google, such as the ability to search by line art, the color of the image, or by a more nebulous "similar image" capability.

When a user hovers over the image and then clicks on it, the way in which the image is shown will differ significantly. Currently, Google Images frames the page, showing a thumbnail of the image. Now, the image will be blown up, with a faded view of the originating Web page in the background.

To date, text ads have been placed at the right of the page. Now, Google will be adding image ads to the top of the page, and offering a new ad format to support that. That ad format will be part of AdWords, and may be added to or replace text-based ads on Google.com over the long term, Mayer acknowledged.

"It may be the case that an image is the most relevant search result, and if that is the case," then it may be the most relevant to show an image-based ad next to the results might make the most sense, Mayer said.


Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2366736,00.asp

i dont like it, its like more complex, and i like simple stuff, older version of stuff is more simple, for example, home was more simple whe nit got released so i liked it more, even tho updates r supossed to be cooler i still like simple and old stuff, so i dont like this new google images format.

RazorX wrote:i dont like it, its like more complex, and i like simple stuff, older version of stuff is more simple, for example, home was more simple whe nit got released so i liked it more, even tho updates r supossed to be cooler i still like simple and old stuff, so i dont like this new google images format.

Not too complicated, before the images looked more separated but its good the way it is now, it loads more images so their is less hassle clicking through loads of pages to find images.