Bing recently released Bing Visual Search Galleries Beta.

A way to start with pictures and end with search. I have to admit I was pretty excited to hear that there may be a better way to find stuff on the web…

The premise – people process images and text faster than text alone.

Quoting their Blog, “A study conducted by Microsoft Research shows that consumers can process results with images 20% faster than text only results.”

Seems pretty logical. And who doesn’t want it to be easier to find what you are looking for on the Web? Go Visual! So I tested it out…

To summarize – Not what I had hoped for but my hopes were high.

I realize this is a Beta but there are only five top-level categories that support 39 “Galleries” to start search. So if you have a search that fits into one of the galleries they have – great.

“Start with pictures to find results faster!” They say.

I say – This Beta version works well if you have a picture in your mind say for a movie trailer you saw and can’t remember the name of the movie. Or you were at a party and saw a cool digital camera but can’t remember the name. Or you saw a dog, want it, but don’t know the name of the breed. Or saw a news item about a politician, remembered their face and can’t remember their name. That Bla-something guy – new book, big hair, lot’s of swear.

BINGO!

So what are the pros and cons?

Pros:

1. It’s cool the way the pictures are organized and animate
2. Good consumer product shopping engine – lots of ways to narrow search.
3. Easy to use – very intuitive.

Cons:

1. You have to install a plug-in to make it work on anything but Internet Explorer.
2. There are only 39 categories to choose from.
3. Seems to be set up for mostly “non-work” types of search.
4. Ultimately, the last picture you click takes you to regular old search results page to sort through…

Gallery Review – “MOVIES IN THEATERS”
Just talking non-sponsored links now. I clicked the movie’s picture and with some movies, it took me to a search results page with theater listings that were playing in Chicago. I was not logged in so pretty cool or scary your call.

Sometimes the results pages just appeared random. Could be the “MOVIES IN THEATERS” are not “all” in Chicago yet. I just wanted to learn the UI and have some expectations of what the results would be but they must still be working on that.

I think we all get the concept of filtering search and I think for what they present for the most part is good.

So what will I have to change on my website?

• Do a thorough job of categorizing, naming, and labeling your images.
• Logically categorize your images into like-minded directories if you have a lot of similar images.
• This will make it easy for the search engines to identify your images – IE:

/property-name/
/type-of-digital-camera/
/award-show-name/

Instead of something like: /file1/

• Name your images what is most important for you to be found by – IE:

/john-hancock-skywalk.jpg
/canon-powershot-A630.jpg
/britney-spears-smoking-with-baby.jpg

Not: /image12345aeiou.jpg

• Use descriptive text captions near the image.
• Do not embedded captions in the images.
• Use alt tags to say a little more about the image.

Mouse over any of the images in this post and you will see what the alt text looks like.

These all make it easier for the search engine to see what the image is about and you to be found for that search with your content.

You should be doing this now too because it will benefit your site’s natural search results and traffic with the state of search engines as is.

Though Google is using pattern recognition technology to serve up “similar images” you will do better if they are labeled by what they are rather then what they are not.

This looks like Bing’s answer to Google similar images but it falls short of having full utility for me…

I only look for a digital camera every couple years, I’m not buying Rod Blagojevich’s book (though pretty funny interview on the John Stewart show), and our Belgian Sheppard Heidi wouldn’t take kindly to even the thought of searching for another dog.

So I’m looking forward to the next Bing release and hoping for a more comprehensive solution.

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Tom Lynch Categories: Search Engine Optimization, Technology, Web