[markwelch]

Has anyone else tried Google's "search using image" feature?
Inside Google Search · Search by Image

I just tried it and was quite disappointed with it. It seems to be OK at finding "nearly identical" images, but NOT similar images. I'm really not sure what algorithms it's using, but my hunch is that OCR of text in an image is NOT a factor.

[markwelch]

FYI, to see images that are semantically similar to the image-search example above, see:
heroic journey diagram - Google Search

Notice that the original image used in the first search appears at the bottom right of the second search results.

[markwelch]

Here's another example, showing how accurately Google can find "nearly identical" images, but not "visually similar images."

[piemant]

I't seems to me that Google give result only if he find the identical image first. I'm I wrong? I've tried to modify (contrast) an existing image on the web.. and than searched for this modified image.. no result. If I was right (and I'm really not sure about it) it would not be such a great piece of software..

[MicheleH]

I always thought that Google indexed the images based on the filename, the alt text, the title and the surrounding text. If the site says that picture of an apple is a picture of a peach, Google will place the picture among the peaches, not the apples.

I would guess with the example in your 3rd post that each of the sites used the same filename with similar surrounding content.

[I.M.O.G.]

I haven't used google image search for this purpose Mark. I have used it to find images on specific topics which it typically seems pretty good at, though that can be done easily enough when good html is used with images. What you are looking at has a lot more to do with image recognition algorithm than what I usually turn to google image search for.

Originally Posted by MicheleH

I would guess with the example in your 3rd post that each of the sites used the same filename with similar surrounding content.

I think its apparent the algorithm is slightly more complex than that. The visually similar listings look as though the image file was evaluated for its color contents, to determine similarity. The angry baby is a pretty good match actually there, the rest have very similar features in colors/tones, albeit no resemblance of the original image.

Would be interesting to compare the google results above to the tineye results. I've always gotten better image search results for what I needed using tineye.

[Trust]

Side note. If you're using Google+ make sure you have some nice pics of yourself since I've seen them show up in the SERPS, next to people's sites.