Beginnings and expansion (2001–2011) In 2000,
Google Search results were limited to simple pages of text with links. Google's developers worked on developing this further; they realized that an image search tool was required to answer "the most popular search query" they had seen to date: the
green Versace dress of Jennifer Lopez worn in February 2000. Google paired a recently hired engineer Huican Zhu with product manager
Susan Wojcicki (who would later become CEO of
YouTube) to build the feature, and they launched Google Image Search in July 2001. That year, 250 million images were indexed in Image Search. This grew to 1 billion images by 2005 and over 10 billion images by 2010. In January 2007, Google updated the interface for the image search, where information about an image, such as resolution and
URL, was hidden until the user moved the mouse cursor over its
thumbnail. This was discontinued after a few weeks. On October 27, 2009, Google Images added a feature to its image search that can be used to find similar images. On July 20, 2010, Google made another update to the interface of Google Images, which hid image details until
mouseover. In May 2011, Google introduced a sort by subject feature for a visual category scheme overview of a search query. In June 2011, Google Images added a "Search by Image" feature which allowed for
reverse image searches directly in the image search-bar without third-party add-ons. This feature allows users to search for an image by dragging and dropping one onto the search bar, uploading one, or copy-pasting a URL that points to an image into the search bar.
New algorithm and accusations of censorship (2012–present) On December 11, 2012, Google Images' search engine algorithm was changed once again, in the hopes of preventing
pornographic images from appearing when non-pornographic search terms were used. According to Google, pornographic images would still appear as long as the term searched for was specifically pornographic; otherwise, they would not appear. While Google stated explicitly that they were "not censoring any adult content," it was immediately noted that even when entering terms such as or "
Breast," no explicit results were shown. The only alternative option was to turn on an even stricter filter which would refuse to search for the aforementioned terms whatsoever. On February 15, 2018, the interface was modified to meet the terms of a settlement and licensing partnership with
Getty Images. The "View image" button (a
deep link to the image itself on its source server) was removed from image thumbnails. This change is intended to discourage users from directly viewing the full-sized image (although doing so using a browser's
context menu on the embedded thumbnail
is not frustrated), and encourage them to view the image in its appropriate context (which may also include attribution and copyright information) on its respective web page. The "Search by image" button has also been downplayed, as reverse image search can be used to find higher-resolution copies of copyrighted images. Google also agreed to make the copyright disclaimer within the interface more prominent. On August 6, 2019, the ability to filter images by their
image resolutions was removed, as well as "larger than," "face," and "full color" filters. The relevancy of search results has been examined. Most recently (October 2022), it was shown that 93.1% images of 390 anatomical structures were relevant to the search term. ==Search by Image feature==