Google Rolling Out AMP for Image Search
Google Image Search has been a hub for users to explore photos, images, visual art, etc. Many of us use this search function to look for samples of products we are intending to buy, images of objects/people that we are curious about, or any other reason that make users search for images. However, as time went by and users of Google Image Search increased, it involved them opening multiple pages that considerably slowed their search experience. But now, Google is rolling out a simple yet effective solution to this problem.
I wrote about different topics discussed at the latest Google I/O, but I wasn’t able to discuss this particular topic. Google is bringing AMP-power to mobile image search with the new function Swipe to Visit – making it more efficient and easier for the users to browse and enter pages in image search.
Swipe to Visit displays the website header of the image which can be easily swiped up by the users to view the webpage immediately.
Image from Google
AMP in Image Search
It might be hard to understand since it involves some technical terms, but Swipe to Visit uses AMP’s capability to prerender the page and display a preview of it at the bottom part of the image search screen. So, when a user swipes up, the page is automatically displayed and the webmaster/website still receives a pageview. This is essential to a much better search experience since it allows users to continue with their search session without having to do much work.
Webmasters that already use AMP in their websites don’t need to do anything else since they already support the AMP format. For webmasters that don’t run AMP on their websites, here’s a quick guide by Google and here’s how running AMPs can help your SEO. As they slowly roll out their Swipe to Visit function, webmasters can use Google Search Console’s performance report to check Google Image Search’s new part “AMP on Image result”.
Key Takeaway
Us, as SEOs, tend to spend minimal efforts for Google Image Search since most users find what they’re looking for without having to go to our web pages. But with this new feature, it’ll also enable us SEOs to make use of the traffic in Google Image Search. I’m excited to see how this will affect our site’s traffic and I believe you are excited as well. Do we pour more efforts into Image Search? Or not? Let me know your opinions in the comments below!
