You can also sort images by three category tabs as they appear: latest, galleries, and Facebook. If you choose “latest,” it will show image search results of trending topics, such as events, celebrities and news. This tab will automatically appear for certain queries.

The galleries tab will appear when results that include photo galleries from Yahoo News, Flickr, and Yahoo’s OMG. The Facebook tab comes in when you connect your Facebook account to Yahoo Image Search, and it will appear when results include matches from your Facebook friends’ name, photo album names or album descriptions.

“One of the most significant changes we’ve made to Yahoo! Image Search is the way images are displayed and navigated,” says Yahoo’s Girish Ananthakrishnan. “By clicking on any image on the search results page, the image will appear on a fresh page allowing users to browse effortlessly through full-size images with a simple click on the desktop browser.”

Images play a very significant role in search engine visibility, and it’s wise to keep abreast of any new features that the major search engines roll out. Last week, we looked at a report from Searchmetrics showing how universal or blended search can help marketers in visibility. The study looked at the top 100 results displayed by Google for a database fo about 28 million search terms over a four-month period. Image results appeared in 30% of all searches where universal search results are included in the top 100 listings. That’s more than any other kind of universal search result other than video (more than maps, news, books, shopping, and blogs.

“We found that video and images are highly visible in Google searches when compared with other types of universal search content,” said Searchmetrics CEO Dr Horst Joepen. ”So it makes sense for marketers to increase the volume of video and image content they’re creating and to optimize it both on their own sites and on third party sites such as YouTube and Flickr.”

That’s Google, but Yahoo and Bing also include image results on the first page as well.

On an interesting side note, Barry Schwartz is pointing to a WebmasterWorld thread, where webmasters are claiming that Google Images is doing a better job at determining original sources than Google web search.

Back in April, we introduced Google Images with date annotations, a change that added dates on image thumbnails to help you see which images are most recent. Now, you can use the new date filter in the left-hand set of tools to narrow your search to just images from the previous week.

For example, if you search for [space shuttle], you’ll see images for shuttle launches throughout the years. If you want to see just recent images, like ones of Atlantis, the most recent NASA shuttle to launch, you can click “Past week” in the left-hand panel of tools to see images from the last seven days.

We recently ran an article by Michael Gray about how to optimize your images for search engine traffic. This new feature is simply one more thing to take into consideration.

Last month, Google revealed the most innovative desktop image search feature we’ve seen in quite some time when it announced Search By Image. While it utilizes technology from Google Goggles, the company’s mobile app that lets you take pictures to search for things, it’s quite different to be able to drag an image file into the search box to enter a query.

It just goes to show that while images have been a key part of search for quite some time, they are becoming an even more interesting part of the picture. I’d expect Google to continue to make progress in this area, particularly as it continues to photograph the world for Google Maps, and even business interiors.

Now, they’re giving people Instant Upload with Google+ on mobile. People are already sharing images much more rapidly than ever before.

Some of the big questions many people ask are why would they even want to perform image optimization? Doesn’t it just help people who want to steal or hotlink images? And is there really any meaningful traffic or links that you can get from image optimization? IMHO the answer is yes. Let’s say someone is going on a trip to Italy. They might do image searches for things to do or see in Italy and for famous Italian landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Piza, the Trevi Fountain, or St. Peter’s Basilica. Thanks to Google’s universal search results, images provide a way to get onto the first page (or, in some cases, the top result) and get a click through, an ad view, or adsense impression. It might even get a lead generation completion. Maybe you run a fish store. If a university professor or government agency needs a picture of a fish and your image result appears, and you allow your images to be reused in exchange for a link, this can be huge way to passively build links slowly over time (true story! It happened for a client I used to have). Now that we’ve got the why out of the way, let’s talk about the “how” of image optimization.

Filenames

This is one of the most basic elements of image optimization. If you have an image of blue widgets, I would name your image “blue-widgets.jpg” or “blue-widgets.gif”. You can use other formats like PNG, but I have gotten better results with “jpg” and “gif” files. You can use other characters like underscore as word delimiters, but I get better results with hyphens. You can run the words together if they are separate in other factors. I have found stemming plays a role (ie widget vs widgets), but you can get around it using other factors. I haven’t seen capitalization play a role, but I prefer to use all lower case because I usually use Apache servers and case sensitivity matters. If you are going to have multiple images of the same object-type, I suggest adding a “-1″, “-2″ onto the end.

Now, before the hate mail or hate tweets start, it is entirely possible to have an image rank without the keywords being in the file name–IF there are enough other factors in place. However, you should ask yourself why would you give up a chance to give a search engine a signal about what an image is about? If you work on a large ecommerce platform or other large database application, chances are good that your gold diamond earrings will have an image file name like “GDX347294.jpg” that corresponds to the item’s SKU or other internal classifier. So, yes, you will have to sacrifice the keyword for business reasons.

ALT Text

Let’s get the basic information out of the way: ALT text was designed for screen readers or visually-impaired people to know what they weren’t seeing. Your goal is to use it to satisfy the screen readers while being keyword focused enough for the search engines and without being a keyword stuffing spammer. Here’s an example of ALT text variations:

Keyword stuffed: discount hotel room paris france

ALT text only: Eiffel Tower

SEO optimized: Eiffel Tower from Louvre Bons Enfants hotel room

Striving to find a balance between pleasing the search engines and text readers can be a juggling act. If you are risky with some of your other SEO techniques, I’d play this on the safe side.

Headings and Bold Text

If image optimization for a particular image is important, I really like to optimize the image with bold or a heading tag of the term I’m chasing right above the image. I’ve found this really helps give a strong signal to the engines

 

Oceanus Statue from Trevi Fountain

Image Captions

Image captions like the one to the right are another way I really like to give the search engines a good nudge in the direction I want them to go. Try to place the search term you are trying to optimize for at the front of the caption.

Image size

I’ve found that if you keep your images a reasonable size you generally do better with image optimization. That’s not to say really big or really small images won’t rank, just that images that are larger than 100×100 and smaller than 1200×1200 work best. Using a thumbnail that links to a larger picture can be helpful.

Image Traffic

So what can you expect from image traffic? Like all things, it depends on what you are chasing, but I have one image that ranks on the first page for a single word term that brings in hundreds of views for me every month. The page has adsense on it and, over a single year, it brings in several hundred dollars worth of revenue. It’s something to think about before you write off image optimization.

 

Images Traffic Data

So what are the takeaways from this post:

• Try to name your images with your keywords if possible, using the hyphen as a delimiter.
• Shorter names are better than longer. Avoid using more than 4 words if possible.
• Keep your ALT text keyword focused without being stuffed or spammy.
• If possible use headings or bold tags above or directly next to the image.
• Use captions if at all possible and keep the keywords closer to the front of the caption.
• Keep the images a reasonable size. They should be large enough for people to see but small enough to fit on a screen.
• If you own the image, encourage people to reuse your image in exchange for a link.
• Try to find a way to monetize image traffic with CPM advertising, adsense, or affiliate links.

Originally published at Graywolf’s SEO Blog

"The landing page assembles the top images in full fidelity so you can get a quick snap-shot of some of the most popular image searches on Bing," says the Bing Image Search team. "Once you click through to the ‘images’ page you will notice that we’ve populated the tabs with the most common search queries associated with a given image.  With one simple click, you can narrow down the images to find just what you’re looking for or be inspired to discover more."

Images have always been one of Bing’s strong suits, from the style of scrolling the search engine offers on image search results, which was later copied by Google, to the Bing home page, which displays a photo of the day, which was kind of also copied by Google. 

It will be interesting to see if Google  adopts a similar strategy with its image search landing page after this. Currently, Google just has the plain page with the Google logo/search box, which resembles the search engine’s classic home page. Bing’s new approach is certainly more interesting. 

"The landing page assembles the top images in full fidelity so you can get a quick snap-shot of some of the most popular image searches on Bing," Bing explains. "Once you click through to the ‘images’ page you will notice that we’ve populated the tabs with the most common search queries associated with a given image.  With one simple click, you can narrow down the images to find just what you’re looking for or be inspired to discover more."

Other recently added features to the Bing search engine include TV listings and sports ticketing information, as well as enhanced auto search results.

Are "likes" from your friends sprinkled into search results enough to get you to use Bing? Let us know.

Social (Facebook)

"Starting today, if your search results include a specific link that has also been ‘liked’ by someone in your Facebook network the link will be highlighted as ‘Liked’ within Bing," Microsoft’s Bing team explains. "This gets especially interesting for a query like ‘Xbox’ where my friend ‘Liked’ the ‘Kinect’ site and while our algorithms didn’t feel it was relevant enough to make it the ‘answer’ we reference above, we are still able to indicate that my friend liked that link that happened to show up within the results."

This will be one clear advantage that Bing has over Google in terms of regular web search. Google has done a lot involving delivering social results, but Facebook data are THE social results that matter most – at least as long as Facebook is the dominant social site that it is today. With people constantly "liking" content all over the web, this can be a great indicator of relevance on a personalized level. It’s going to catch your attention when you notice your friend appear in the search results. 

Bing has been running a similar feature in search results for several weeks, including likes from places like CitySearch, but there should be a much more broad set of potential results that will include "like" info now. It appears the feature may still be rolling out, so if you don’t see the "liked" results, you’re not the only one. I do get a message about it when I search with Bing, but after some testing, I’m clearly not getting these results. 

For example, as illustrated by Bing here, I should see when my friend has "liked" a movie on IMDB underneath the IMDB result for that movie on Bing. I have tested this with a specific movie that I made sure one of my friends had "liked" and that "like" did not appear under the result. 

Sports Tickets

Bing has also added sports ticket info from FanSnap directly into the search experience, so users can view ticket results from 57 ticket companies, see ticket selection and price ranges, find the best ticket prices, and access a "view-from-seat" feature. 

Image Search

Bing has also made changes to how it presents and organizes image search results. "The first thing you will notice is our new Instant Answer that organizes a rich collage of images directly into the main results page," Bing explains. "Once you click through to the ‘images’ page you will notice that we’ve populated the tabs with the most common search queries associated with a given image."

"Instead of making you qualify that you’re looking for (Casablanca, Morocco or Casablanca, the movie), we have organized the tabs so that one simple click gets you to what you’re looking for," Bing adds.

Local 

For local search, Bing has added interior views, enhanced OpenTable integration for restaurants, real-time transit and Streetside for Mobile. Bing has partnered with EveryScape Eats, which provides imagery of restaurant interiors. These can be accessed by clicking "step inside" on Bing Local details pages (it utilzes Microsoft’s Silverlight). For now, it includes about 5,000 restaurants, mostly in Boston, but the company will add locations and cities over time. We’ll see if they expand beyond restaurants. Google has already been experimenting with taking pictures inside businesses. 

Additionally, Bing users can access local details pages for restaurants that are signed up with OpenTable and search for available reservations from Bing itself. 

Bing Mobile on the iPhone now has "up-to-the-minute" data for transit agencies (in Seattle, Boston, and San Francisco so far), and Streetside – Bing’s eqivalent of Google’s Streetview is available on Bing Mobile now.  Bing has also made adjustments to its map style and a bunch of other updates to its iPhone and Andriod apps.

Will This All Help Bing Increase Its Market Share?

As we’ve discussed in the past, Bing has a lot of things that could work in its favor in terms of helping it grow its search market share, and some of these new features (namely the Facebook likes) won’t hurt. The company also introduced some Facebook sharing features for Shopping Search a couple weeks ago.

Will the new features help Bing grow its market share? Tell us what you think.

Do you think Google is improving with its Bing-like design changes? Tell us what you think.

In fact, Google has been drawing a great deal of criticism, and general observation this week regarding its increasing "Bingness". A very large percentage of the articles written this week about Google’s new image search, not only make comparisons to Bing, but mention it in the title.

Some question why Google is trying to become more like Bing, while it already controls a much larger part of the search market. Others think the changes are for the better. After all, it’s not like Google has changed its algorithm to match Bing’s.

Still, "It seems that almost every time that Google makes an improvement in its aesthetic appeal, it looks more and more like Bing, notes  Converseon‘s Mike Moran. "Remember the short-lived attempt to customize the Google home page recently which has since been removed?"

Let’s Look at the actual new design…

You can get up to a thousand images in one scrolling page, and the pages will have page numbers so you can keep track of where you are. This has been a feature lacking from Bing’s image search (though it does at least display a number for the range currently displayed…such as 377-416 of 6,400,000 results).

Google is also providing larger thumbnail previews on the results page, with a hover pane that appears when you mouse over a thumbnail. This includes more info and other features like "similar images."

"Once you click on an image, you’re taken to a new landing page that displays a large image in context, with the website it’s hosted on visible right behind it," explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "Click anywhere outside the image, and you’re right in the original page where you can learn more about the source and context."

Finally, you can use Page Up/ Page Down to scroll through pages quickly.

Some webmasters have taken issue with Google’s new image search design, complaining that it puts their ads further away from being clicked. "The main issue from a webmaster perspective, as noted in WebmasterWorld, is that when you click on an image, it doesn’t take you to the site," writes Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable. "Instead, it keeps you on Google, overlays the image in large format on top of your grayed out web site."

"So any ads on your site won’t be clickable after the first click from Google. Users are instructed to either go back, click on the web site with the image or click on the actual image source file," he explains. "I should note that clicking anywhere on the background web site will take you to that web site."

Remember, the new design did come with a new ad format too. The format is called (appropriately) Image Search Ads.

"These ads appear only on Google Images, and they let you include a thumbnail image alongside your lines of text," explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "We hope they’re a useful way to reach folks who are specifically looking for images."

Advertisers can review specific performance metrics for their ads on Google Images. They are priced the same as standard AdWords ads with cost-per-click pricing. More on these here.

As far as Google’s recent design choices, it is pretty clear that Bing has had some kind of influence on them. The question is whether or not this is a good thing. So, I’ll ask you…is it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Note: This article has been updated to reflect commentary since the launch of the new image search.

There is one interesting complaint, however that is coming from webmasters, who have been voicing their frustrations in webmaster forums. "The main issue from a webmaster perspective, as noted in WebmasterWorld, is that when you click on an image, it doesn’t take you to the site," writes Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable. "Instead, it keeps you on Google, overlays the image in large format on top of your grayed out web site."

"So any ads on your site won’t be clickable after the first click from Google. Users are instructed to either go back, click on the web site with the image or click on the actual image source file," he explains. "I should note that clicking anywhere on the background web site will take you to that web site."

There have been inevitable comparisons between the new Google Image Search and Bing’s Image Search, but I wouldn’t necessarily count that as a complaint, because since the launch of Bing, people have expressed praise for the image search functionality even if they continued to use Google. It is undeniable, however that Google’s overall user interface has become much more Bing-like in recent months.

The Google Image Search redesign is still in the process of rolling out, so if you don’t have access to it yet, be patient. You will soon.

"These ads appear only on Google Images, and they let you include a thumbnail image alongside your lines of text," explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "we hope they’re a useful way to reach folks who are specifically looking for images."

Advertisers can review specific performance metrics for their ads on Google Images. They are priced the same as standard AdWords ads with cost-per-click pricing.

Advertisers can create the ads using Google’s Display Ad Builder. They can use a template to pair relevant ad text with targeted images.

To create an Image Search Ad, simply go to your AdWords account, select the campaign or ad group where you want to create it, click the Ads tab, select Display ad builder from the "new ad" drop-down menu, then select "templates for search" and choose Image Search Ad.

Google recommends that advertisers create a new ad group so that they can target keywords, adjust bids, and track performance for ads specifically on Google Images.

Five pages of images representing trending topics have been made available in each case, and it’s possible to either click through the pages one by one or let them scroll automatically.  Then, by hovering over an individual image, a user can see what site it came from.  Current top sources include the Washington Post, Yahoo News, the New York Daily News, YouTube, Yahoo Video, and Metacafe.

It seems like this approach is bound to get Yahoo a lot of additional clicks and attention.  After all, it’s one thing to know that tensions between North South Korea are running high, but a picture of three warships – or of Megan Fox or Michael Jordan, depending on one’s interests – is more likely to draw an individual in.

Early results have been quite positive, too.  A post on the Yahoo Search Blog explained this morning, "Already, we’ve seen double-digit percentage increases in engagement for both image and video search since launching these new homepages, with a 60% increase in time spent on the image search homepage."

And more "pretty" updates should be on the way.  The post continued, "This is just the start of a set of changes we’ll be making to help you find the information you’re looking for."

Here’s a demo:

Thumbnails are square, as to maximize the amount of images that can be shown on the screen at once. Users can swipe to see the next/previous page of results, or tap the next/previous page buttons to navigate. Google says it optimized the experience for speed, so images appear quickly as you browse.

When a user actually views an image, they are now displayed as largely as possible with a new special image viewing page. This has a black background to emphasize the image, and the buttons fade out after a few seconds, so you can just look at the image. You can browse through the image results while in this view with a simple swipe, just like the results pages themselves.

Users of compatible devices need only go to google.com on their phones and go to "images". The new version works in 38 languages.