Google spiffs up Images search as ‘visual Web’ grows

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Google will be rolling out an update to its Images search service in the coming days, the company announced Tuesday.

The most obvious update to Google Images will be the site’s new design. According to Google, its current grid-like layout isn’t as useful as it could be. To fix that, the company has created a ‘dense tiled layout’ that allows searchers to view more images at the same time. The photos are positioned to maximize viewing and sorting, the company said.

With the help of a new instant-scrolling feature, searchers can sift through up to 1,000 images in a single page. Those images can also be displayed in a large, thumbnail preview pane for users with high-resolution displays.

Google has also added a hovering feature that allows a user to view a large version of an image by simply rolling his or her mouse over a picture.

Google’s improvements to its Images search is a long time coming. When the company launched Google Images in 2001, it indexed 250 million images. Today, the search giant has over 10 billion indexed images. A better design was definitely needed to accommodate such growth.

-- Don Reisinger
twitter.com/donreisinger