ASK.com Updates to Image Search

Just last week I went Face to Face With Image Search and just as it always seems to happen in the ever-evolving, always exciting world of search, ASK.com rolled out a sweeping aesthetic change, making every nice screen shot presented last Friday outdated in less than a week’s time.

So, in fairness to ASK, I’ll take a moment to review their updates as they pertain to image searches since they’ve made some changes for the better. Oh, who am I kidding. Had the changes been for the worse, I’d still have posted this update.

Here’s what their new image search results page looks like for a simple search for “gates”:

Notice that the page is now cut into three sections, with related names, expand your search and narrow your search options on the left. The right side of the site page is now devoted to the news image options, some news related search results and video! I happen to like the new layout and find it easier to navigate with all of my choices being laid out on the outer perimeter of the page. They’ve moved the vertical search options below the logo at the top left and made room to offer further image search refinements for size, file types and colors. One of the size drop down options is “buddy icon” which I find really amusing for some reason. I had no idea there was such a market for those. So far as I know, ASK is the only major player to offer that size refinement for it’s image search.

Still no face recognition choices, but I can still refine my image search to Bill Gates or Gareth Gates or Horatio Gates if I like.

Choosing “Bill Gates” gives me this result:

Looks like the same images that were returned last week, but the surrounding package is much sweeter. I can find names related to Bill Gates’ name, like Donald Trump and Paul Allen. I can expand my search to include search for the “richest person in the world” or “Atari”. I can narrow my search, in case I was planning to send Mr. Gates an email (do people really search for that)? AND I can refine my interest into other vertical searches offered on the right including news images, videos, a tidy profile provided by who2.com, Wikipedia results and news stories.

I could actually see people starting to perform image searches on ASK for their own names and names of friends to determine if they’ve reached fame. When ASK image search offers all those extra vertical, narrowed and expanded choices, you’ll know you’re famous.

 back to top