Image Search: Does Size Matter?
- Posted February 23rd, 2005 at 2:36 pm by Yahoo! Search
- Categories: News/Announcements
Let’s be real. No matter how large our image index grows in size, it is only as good as its ability to return the pictures you seek. And when each picture says a thousand words, just how deep would you have to reach into your vocabulary bank to find the right words to query? Now with more than 1.5 billion images in the index, here at Yahoo! Image Search we’re faced with a new dilemma: How do we help you navigate through this massive corpus to find exactly what you’re looking for?
Rather than forcing you to become an expert in query refinement, we’ve been thinking hard about ways we might help. For example, we noticed that a lot of sessions starting with the query ‘superbowl’ ultimately ended up with users navigating to Janet Jackson’s famous ‘oops’ moment. Duly noted. And while Image Search is probably not ready to pass the Turing Test, we’ve just taken some giant leaps in allowing you to express your queries in simple, straightforward language (as opposed to meddling with the Advanced Search link’)
Being the largest image search engine simply isn’t enough. As we continue to expand the index size, we’re also working hard to make image searching easier and faster than ever.
Also Try
While an accurate mind-reading machine is still a vision for the utopian future, search for ‘simpson‘ and our Also Try engine will make its best guess at what you are likely searching for. In this case, the engine detects that a top phrase related to the query is “Jessica Simpson,” and offers this as the first ‘refinement’ proposal. This is just like the “also try” feature on our Web Search but we’ve tweaked it specifically for image search. (See for yourself with a web search for simpson. Apparently Jessica ranks #1 in image search but people would rather read about Ashlee.)
Transformed Queries
And while our advanced search link won’t be going away, there is an easier way to find that black and white shot of your favorite athlete. Type in the query as you would say it: black and white pics of tiger woods. A crazy concept, perhaps, but the results that follow are actually those you asked for: Tiger Woods in black and white photos, not the universe of the golfer’s images associated with the words “black,” “white,” and “pics.” This means that you’ll get the same set of results no matter whether you type in “pics,” “images,” “photos,” or “pictures.” The search engine knows what you mean.
This Transformed Query feature extends to size specifications as well:
*hilary duff wallpaper (where “wallpaper” refers to an image large enough to use as background wallpaper on your computer).
*large image of tiger
*small black and white pictures of kittens (not to be confused with small black and white kittens where you’re describing the kittens not the pictures)
Direct Display in Web Search
Lastly, in the spirit of ‘easier’ and ‘faster,’ you can now also preview image results directly in your web search results. See what our Direct Display returns when you type in the following web search queries:
*hello kitty wallpaper
*paris hilton photos
*images of sports cars
When you do find that perfect photo, share it with a friend. Click on the Mail to Friend link in the preview page of your favorite Jessica shot.
In summary: Yes, size does matter. But only if you know how to use it. ;-)
Kaigene Jau
Product Manager, Yahoo! Image Search
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Hmm…that is a nice feature that you have there! Wow…you guys really are impressing me a lot! One thing would be cool though if you took the “Large, Medium, Small” from the Advanced tab and place it out in the front (that would help more people out).
I love the black and white feature. And I didn’t know you were the largest image search engine…I’ll have to make a note of that in my blog. Selah!
What impact will this have on RSS Feeds? I run a business that builds RSS solutions for small and medium sized businesses (http://www.rss4biz.com) and one of the areas we obviously work in are images (and audio Podcast) as part of our RSS feeds.
Will our images (and audio) content be searchable?
Thanks and keep up the great work.
Jeff
It would be nice if you could also implement ‘greyscale’ and ‘grayscale’ as the same search shortcut as ‘black and white’ (i.e. to restrict to black and white images).
I have noticed, image search or normal search… highest queries are the current news and articals. Second best in my opinion is page three people. And least are some odd search of any mechnical or technical search. So it isn’t a tough job for guys who run the show. They have to just be wide awake and keep their eyes and ears open for NEXT BIG THING!
Thats what I think
Ok. Being the largest image library in the world is one thing but people spend significantly more time on the first two pages of results (not that the rest is insignificant, I’m a huge fan of the Long Tail).
So the question becomes how do you improve the image results on the first two pages. The best answer has less to do with technology, algorithms, artificial refinement, etc. The best answer is to hire 10 college kids and pay them minimum wage to go down your list from top to bottom of the most frequently requested image search terms and rank the first 10 pages of photos subjectively and then use this ranking to prioritize display.
Look, do a Google or Yahoo! image search and many of the first page results are horrible. Manually get rid of these bad results. Bad quality (eg. over or under exposed photos), wrong subjects, etc. can largely be manually weeded out. I suppose a little of the Looksmart strategy.
Also manually use a pagerank system to give certain bloggers, especially photobloggers, a higher rating as their photos tend to be technically much better than the average Joe. Yes, I know this might be controversial and smack of subjective discrimination. But if you improve the overall user experience you will generate the traffic.
As an aside, since Google has updated their image search library my own hits at my photoblog http://thomashawk.com/2004/07/thomas-hawks-digital-photoblog-click.html have grown explosively. I can’t figure it out. I have no idea why but Google image searches now make up probably 70% of my traffic. I’d like to think that it’s because my photos are indeed good but I think there may be something more to it than that. I’d love to find out for instance why when you search for “rain” on Google Images and I’m on the first page results of over 708,000 images. Type in “Jackson” and again I’m on the first page of over 605,000 images. Type in “Lame Duck” and I’m number one. I can’t figure it out.
By contrast I’ve received zero traffic from Yahoo! Image Search.
John Battelle posted on this Google Image Search thing when I first noticed it happening a while back but I’ve yet to see an explanation on the difference between how Google and Yahoo! rank Image Search Results.
A Creative Commons license flag on the images would be useful too – many of these changes look perfect for someone searching for kittens to photoshop for sites like B3ta. If the crawler checked for the CC license code too, and flagged the images (perhaps a little CC logo over the corner of the images, or a logo next to them) users would be able to quickly pick out the images they’ve already got permission to use for such things. Still need to check the license on the actual site to make sure, but 90% of the work would have been done.
Very nice changes, though – this is the sort of thing that in a few years it’ll seem stupid to think that you ever *couldn’t* do.
please put the “Large, Medium, Small” options in the results page. it will be amazing.
Yahoo it’s better than google.
RSS4Biz http://www.rss4biz.com is working with the folks at blogbot to refine their news aggregator. One of the items up for discussion is how RSS handles images. Although there are tags available, and size does matter, how is Yahoo going to handle these in its own My Yahoo service? Right now no images are being read … is that changing? If so, will there be some limit on the size?