For some time now, my best trick for finding an image on-line has been TinEye’s website coupled with browser plugins that let me right-click an image and see where else it’s been used on-line, and potentially find a better version.
Yesterday TinEye got some serious competition from Google as they now allow you to search for a specific image, by uploading the image or, by providing a URL. Google also added an option to search via voice recognition.
At long last Google can hear, see, and read!
To do a search by image:
- Go to Google.com
- Click Images
- Click the camera icon in the search box
- Paste the image URL
(or click “Upload an image”)
To search by voice:
- Go to Google.com
- Click the little microphone icon
- Clearly speak your mind
- Cross your fingers and wait
Here’s an example search with voice :
Currently there’s no plugins/extensions for Chrome to assist with web-image searches or on-the-spot voice searches. Ideally I’d like to be able to press a keyboard short-cut and have it do a Google search of whatever I say next.
Looking at the URL syntax/parameters for the image search by URL function, I doubt we’ll see someone just slap together a solution, and Google may be the best ones to author a plugin.
So for now I’ll still have my TinEye plugin doing most of my ‘search by URL’ image location, but when it fails you know where I’m going next. Thanks Google!
PS: I didn’t really forget the whole side discussion. I was just waiting for a really good remark that wasn’t related to any boneheads post-game. This one came my way from a friend who has always been a rabid fan:
TWO TVINS NO CUPIN? (Thanks Paul)
SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 8:10 pm
