Google Updates Images Search Site Function

by Stephen Logan on 22nd February 2010

The site attribute on queries conducted using Google Images has been updated to include all images on a site – even if they are not hosted on its domain.

A post on the Official Google Blog explains that, previously, queries conducted using the site operator – such as by adding site:google.com – would yield only images that were hosted on the domain included in the search query.

Now, using the operator will return all images that are displayed on the site, no matter where they are hosted online, allowing social sharing sites such as Flickr or Digg to be incorporated into the results in a move that could directly impact SEO services for sites optimising their image content.

Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience, writes in her blog post: "The operator will run your search over websites that include images, no matter where the images themselves are hosted – which removes a lot of noise from your results."

Advanced Google Images searches can query not only specific domains, but also precise image sizes, file formats, colours and aspect ratios.