Google is adding a little more context to photos in image search results, thus providing website owners with new opportunities to gain traffic.
A new feature of Google Images will be launched this week, which can quickly reflect what is shown in the photo.
Critical information about people, places, or things related to the picture will be extracted from Google’s knowledge graph and displayed below the photo when clicked.
More Context = More Clicks?
Google said that this update is designed to help searchers explore topics in more detail. One way for searchers to explore topics in more detail is to visit web pages with pictures.
The added context may make the image more attractive, just like Google added meta descriptions to image search results.
However, this isn’t exactly the same as the images and facts are shown below are from different sources.
The results in Google Images come from all sites on the web, but the corresponding facts for each image are extracted from the knowledge graph.
In the example shared by Google, you can see how the image comes from the hosting website, while other information comes from other sources.
On the one hand, this makes it almost impossible for site owners to control the information displayed under their images in search results.
On the other hand, Google provides searchers with more information about the image, which may increase the number of clicks on the image source.
Perhaps the best part of this update is that website owners don’t need to take any action.
Google will improve your image search summary on its own.
Another Traffic Opportunity
If you are lucky enough to include content in Google’s “knowledge graph,” then there are now more opportunities to display these links in search results.
Contrary to what it sometimes seems, Wikipedia is not the only source of information in the Google Knowledge Graph.
Google has extracted billions of facts from hundreds of sites on the web. After all, there are about 500 billion facts in the knowledge graph; about 5 billion entities-they cannot all come from Wikipedia.
Google’s official help page states:
“Facts in the Knowledge Graph come from a variety of sources that compile factual information. In addition to public sources, we license data to provide information such as sports scores, stock prices, and weather forecasts.
We also receive factual information directly from content owners in various ways, including those who suggest changes to knowledge panels they’ve claimed.”
As Google said, website owners, can submit information to the “knowledge graph” by declaring the knowledge panel. However, this is not something everyone can do because they must either be an entity in the knowledge panel or represent another entity.
However, this is still worth mentioning because it is an underestimation for those who have the opportunity to apply for the knowledge expert group but have not yet obtained the knowledge expert.
If you have not done so, then you must declare your business’s knowledge panel. Local businesses will get the most benefit from this update.
That is especially true if you can post photos of your company on the web. Then, the knowledge graph information with links may surface below these images.
This feature is being rolled out to mobile search results in the United States.
Source: https://blog.google/products/search/knowledge-graph-google-images/