The first thing many people would do when looking for an image on the web, is to visit Google Images.
Google Images is a search engine from Google that allows users to search the web for image content hosted on websites and other places.
It was first introduced on July 2001, in response to the high demand of pictures of Jennifer Lopez's see-through green Versace dress.
As a search engine powered by Google, Google Images show thumbnails of pictures to respond to users' queries.
And when users click on a thumbnail, the image will be displayed in a larger size in its own box, allowing users to visit the page where the image is used, or see more details about it.
While the Google Image is versatile and indeed capable, it has a number of weaknesses.
On Twitter, Google announced that it has released an update to Google Images in order to reduce duplicates in the search results.
“To help, we made an improvement to Image Search to reduce duplicate images, so that we can display others that are relevant yet visually distinct,” the company's search liaison account tweeted.
Have you ever searched for something in Google Images and sometimes found the results dominated by the same image? To help, we made an improvement to Image Search to reduce duplicate images, so that we can display others that are relevant yet visually distinct.... pic.twitter.com/gGbC5v2aP8
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 11, 2021
With the update, Google said that images on Google Images search results are more visually distinct from each other, allowing a more diverse set of relevant images for users' query.
Google also added that it made improvements to the images and categories it uses for alternate meanings of words.
In its example, the company explained that a "jaguar" can either be an animal, a sports team, a car manufacturer, or others.
In the update, Google said that the "improvement works to show images for alternative meanings, when that seems helpful."
In the following tweet, Google reminded users to they can use the "buttons that may appear atop image search results that allow anyone to refine a query to a particular meaning, such as to easily focus images to be about jaguars, the animals."
The update was actually introduced back in November 2020.
In other words, the update was made a few months back and Google is just announcing that it went live.
"We hope this improvement, which we introduced in November, helps everyone better make use of Google Images to be inspired and informed as they search visually,” the company added.
There are also times when a query can relate to different things. For example, [jaguar] could mean either the animal or the car. Sometimes, one meaning can dominate image results. Our improvement works to show images for alternative meanings, when that seems helpful.... pic.twitter.com/YvAikMnJq2
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 11, 2021