Google Turns Twenty and Changes Image Search

Twenty years, and a list of changes

Google marked twenty years of search today with an event about where search goes next, and a long list of announcements.

The feed of articles in the Google app has a new name, Discover. Activity cards will help people pick up a search where they left off, videos get a new featured treatment, and image search is changing.

Most of the announcements concern how people find things without typing a query. The image search changes are the ones that give a small business something to do.

What was announced for image search

• Captions under each image showing the title of the page it comes from.
• Related searches suggested across the top of the results.
• More weight on the page, with its authority now a stronger signal.
• Fresher pages given priority.
• Pages where the image is central and near the top preferred.
• Google Lens coming to image search in the coming weeks.

The first is the one anyone can check this week. Google says it is starting to show the page title under each image, as critical context for understanding the page the picture comes from.

Your page title becomes the caption

Every page has a title, set in its code and shown in the browser tab and as the blue link in ordinary search results. It is often written once, in a hurry, or left as the theme set it.

Under a photograph, a title such as Gallery, Home or Portfolio page 3 tells a searcher nothing. A title naming the subject and the business tells them what they would find if they tapped.

Every page with a photograph worth finding deserves a title written for a stranger: what the page is about first, then who you are.

The page around the picture

Google said it has spent the past year changing how images are ranked, to favour results with both good images and good content on the page.

The authority of the page is now a more important signal. Google's example was a search for shelving to build yourself: the images are now more likely to come from a site about building projects.

For a business, that means a photograph does better on a page that is genuinely about its subject than on a page that merely happens to contain it.

One subject per page, near the top

Google now gives priority to pages where the image is central to the page and higher up on it.

Its example was shoes: a product page dedicated to one particular pair will come ahead of a category page showing a whole range of styles.

The same logic applies to a business showing its work. A page about one project or product, with its main photograph near the top, fits that description.

A single gallery page holding sixty photographs fits it for none of them.

Fresher pages

Google also said it prioritises fresher content, so pages updated recently are more likely to be shown.

That is no reason to change dates on pages for their own sake.

It is a reason to keep the pages that show your work current: add the new project, replace the photograph from 2012, and remove what no longer represents you.

What helps Google read a photograph

Google's published advice on images has long said that file names, alt text and the words near an image all help it understand what the image shows.

A file called IMG_4471.jpg says nothing. A file named for its subject says something before Google reads a word of the page.

Alt text, the short description a screen reader speaks aloud and a browser shows if the image fails to load, should describe the photograph plainly. A line of caption under the photograph does the same job for every visitor.

A worked example

A custom knife maker working from a garage workshop in a small Interior town sells kitchen and outdoor knives, made to order, with a waiting list of a few months.

Every knife he had made sat on one page titled Gallery: sixty photographs named by the camera, with no alt text and no words apart from a contact link at the bottom.

Someone searching images for a carbon steel chef's knife with a maple handle had little chance of landing on any of them, and nothing under the result would have said whose work it was.

He kept the gallery, but each of his twelve best knives now has a page of its own, titled with what the knife is.

The main photograph sits at the top, followed by a few lines on the steel, the handle and the length.

The photographs were renamed before upload and given alt text, and each thumbnail in the gallery links to its knife's page.

Discover, briefly

Discover is the new name for the feed of articles and videos under the search box in the Google app, chosen from what a person follows and searches for.

It now shows topic headings, lets people follow topics, and can include older pages that are new to the reader. Google says it is coming to the mobile Google home page over the next few weeks.

There is nothing for a business to submit or switch on.

The counter-case

Image search matters more to some businesses than to others.

Anyone selling things people choose by looking, such as furniture, food, crafts or finished renovations, has the most to gain. An emergency locksmith's customers rarely search images at all.

A business with only a handful of photographs may not need a page for each, provided every photograph sits on the page it illustrates.

Where pictures do matter, the work is the same: a clear title, one subject per page, and the photograph near the top.

This month

1. Search Google Images for your business name.
2. Read the captions under your photographs.
3. Rewrite vague page titles for strangers.
4. Give your best work a page each.
5. Put the main photograph near the top.
6. Rename image files before uploading.
7. Add plain alt text to every photograph.

Step three is the quickest and the most visible. A vague page title is about to be printed beneath every image from that page, in front of everyone who searches.

Image results can be picked out in the Performance report, covered in Search Console leaves beta.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.