To promote high-quality information online, Google has provided new ways to check images and sources online. This helps ensure that users are more confident about navigating the SERPs and trust the results.
Create Context With “About This Image”
Earlier in the year, Google announced the new “about image” feature, which rolled out on October 25 for users globally. Here’s what users can learn with this new feature:
- An image’s history: You can see where an image first appeared online.
- How other sites use and describe the image: You can see how other sites use it to assess claims about it.
- An image’s metadata: You can see the metadata the image creators have added to the image and if AI created the image.
This new feature can help provide context for images found in search results, especially those generated by AI. Google says you can access this tool by clicking on the three dots in the Google Image search results or by clicking “more about this page” in the About This results tool.
Search Images with Fact Check Explorer
Google’s Fact Check Explorer lets users investigate facts that different organizations have checked out.
This past summer, Google released a beta version that allows users to upload an image to fact check. This tool provides different contexts in which the image was used. Google states that users found this tool helped reduce their investigation time into an image.
SGE Provides More Sources
It’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole when searching for sources online. However, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) hopes to alleviate some of that frustration by searching for sources for you.
For those who opted in on the tool, you’ll see AI-generated descriptions of sources supported by high-quality sites. Most results will show links in the AI-generated description.
For results that don’t have an existing overview from Wikipedia or Google Knowledge Graph, sources will show up in the “more about this page section” of the About This result.
Why Does All This Matter?
Google continually prioritizes high-quality information for its users. These features aim to help users make sense of search results.
Offering users more ways to quickly check sources for articles and images in search results is essential for promoting credibility, trustworthiness, and overall quality of online content.
It empowers users to make informed decisions, supports content creators in producing reliable information, and contributes to a more trustworthy and accountable online ecosystem.
