Google adds a side panel, shopping info to desktop image search
Google revamped its image search page Tuesday, adding shopping information along with a new side-panel interface. Screenshot: Sriram Sharma.
San Jose, Calif. (KTVU) - Google made a few tweaks to its desktop version of the image search page Tuesday, adding a side-panel that allows the user continue to scroll on two separate tabs.
"Starting today, when you select an image, it appears in a side panel on the page, next to the search results." said Mike Repass, Product manager, Google Images, sharing his thought process behind the redesign in a blog post. "Importantly, it stays there as you scroll, letting you easily compare images with others on the page. Do this as many times as you want without losing track of what you looked at; just hit the back button to bring up the last image you clicked on."
The search giant has also added shopping info to product searches, with details such as brand, price, availability and reviews showing up, along with a short caption displayed under the image. Google has shared a resource to help developers make this information appear.
Google holds a commanding share of the search market - 92.19 percent of all web searches, according to a July chart on global search engine marketshare by Statcounter. Only Bing, Yahoo, and Duck Duck Go have a market share greater than half a percent, apart from China's Baidu and Russia's Yandex.
Google said it would try to make its shipments 100 percent carbon neutral by 2020, and use 100 percent recycled materials for its Made by Google line-up of products by 2022, in a post published Monday outlining its hardware and services sustainability commitments. "We will make technology that puts people first and expands access to the benefits of technology," said Anna Meegan, who heads sustainability, at Google's consumer hardware division.