The new Yahoo! interface includes more recommended search queries for related images than Google, a next-image picking slideshow on each image's page, and an easy direct link to the image itself. Unfortunately, there is not a filter by copyright conditions, which is a major shortcoming.

Google's interface does not make it as easy to scan through multiple images as quickly, but both could use meaningful support for limiting searches to Creative Commons or public domain images. The new Yahoo! Image Search option of limiting to within or outside of Flickr isn't really useful at all.

None the less, we're impressed with this small change from the search giant and we expect that for casual image searching, Yahoo may now be the engine of choice for more people.

Now, Google is working to fix that with new filtering options.

Still, I have to admit that I'm with Tam Vo over at VentureBeat. Even with these new options, the filter that would provide the most value is still conspicuously absent. I remain hopeful that Google Image Search takes a page from Flickr's book and adds the ability to search by Creative Commons licensing.

Until filtering by license information becomes available, Image Search remains a valuable tool for finding images - and with the new filters you have a much better chance of finding what you're seeking - but they're not images you're likely able to use, legally.

For now, this search only includes CC-licensed images from Flickr, Yahoo's own photo sharing service. The Yahoo Image Search interface actually turns out to be a very nice gateway to the CC-licensed image collection on Flickr, especially because the previews update immediately after you change a filter setting.

Flickr's own search interface is relatively clunky compared to Yahoo Image Search and the filter settings on Flickr are hidden behind the advanced search feature which only appears after you have initiated a regular search. While this is also true for Yahoo Image Search, Yahoo remembers your settings between search sessions, which is quite a time-saver.

There are also a number of third-party tools for searching CC-licensed images on Flickr, including compfight, one of our favorites, but few are as slick as Yahoo's Image Search.

As we reported earlier this year, most Flickr users choose the most restrictive licenses for their images, but with over 100 million CC-licensed images on Flickr, chances are that you will find a good picture with the right license for almost any occasion.

From the labs of the makers of the image search engine TinEye comes an extraordinary product. The Multicolr Search Lab allows users to select up to 10 colors that they would like the images they are searching for to contain. To make a color more prominent in the image search results simply select that color several times from the provided color palette. As you pick and choose your colors the search results will automatically refresh with images that represent your new color selections.

So far, the Multicolr Search lab is available for Flickr and Alamy Stock Photography. However, not every Flickr image will be searched. According to the site, they extract the colors "from 3 million "interesting" Flickr images. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour."

Unique Image Search Engines

In addition to the Multicolr Search Lab, I'd also recommend checking out the BYO Image Search Lab from Idée. The BYO or 'Bring Your Own' Image Search Lab allows you to upload an image or choose one that's available on the web and find images from Alamy with similarities such as color tones.

Both search engines are great and unique tools to make the best of. I didn't have any problems getting great matches to the colors and images that I provided. Another bonus is the use of the Flickr "Interesting" set to ensure the best quality photo results. These are two great services that we'll be sure to keep an eye on.

Compfight allows users to easily find a host of images on Flickr. Just type in a keyword or several keywords and Compfight will display numerous images on one page without the miscellaneous information. With the right keywords, the likelihood of you going past page 1 is slim to none. For images with a blue bar at the bottom of an image, hovering your mouse over the image will conveniently give you the dimensions. The only downside is that this enhancement is only available for original images found on Flickr.

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Advanced Settings

The best part about Compfight is it's advanced search settings. You can toggle your search phrase between tags only and the entire text. This is perfect if one setting produces weak results. Just switch to the other and see if it helps. You can also restrict search results to Creative Common licenses, even for commercial images. Want only original images? You can toggle that as an option too along with safe-search.

The Perfect Image Finder For Bloggers

Compfight is a perfect tool for bloggers to utilize to find images for their posts. With a vast array of features and great settings for both commercial and non-commercial blogs, we doubt you'll be let down with Compfight's results. In comparison to Google Image Search, you won't have to worry about running into any legal issues down the line. On the hand, Compfight beats messing around with Flickr's advanced settings. While Flickr may have more options, Compfight gives you the most popular advanced settings without the added hassle or confusion.

For now, Image Swirl only works for about 200,000 queries, though Google plans to include more in the near future.

Better Photo Search Through Smarter Algorithms

This new feature takes image search to a new level, as it doesn't just display the most relevant images. Instead, Google notes, these "are the most relevant groups of images." To create these clusters of related images, Google analyzes the characteristics of the images themselves, but the algorithm also looks at meta tags and other clues in the description of these images. Google uses the same algorithms to find and organize images of landmarks in its index.

In an interview with eWeek, Google Image Swirl Product Manager Aparna Chennapragada said that this new service is part of Google's drive to "go beyond just relying on text." Bing introduced its visual search feature a few weeks ago and is still ahead of Google in bringing these features to its core search product.

Image Swirl makes looking for images on Google a far more interactive and fun experience. For now, Image Swirl is only a labs product - and some of the results can be a bit off at times - but chances are that this feature will find its way into the search options panel on Google Images in the future.

Initially rolled out for select images only, the capability is now being rolled out for what seems to be the majority of images in Google image search. This is particularly useful when search terms include homonyms, we think; and we applaud Google for removing a major pain point in our searches for pics of Tesla the band as opposed to Tesla the scientist or Tesla the automotive brand.

Note the lilac-colored links under most images. Users can employ this feature for narrowing results to specific people, objects, poses, angles, or even identical images posted on different sites. Here's what happened when we clicked the "similar images" link under a thumbnail of hair metalists Tesla:

And again, when we clicked a thumb that pictured the entire band playing live onstage:

It would be interesting if the similarities became more and more granular, but results appear to occasionally broaden or simply stop refining a few clicks into the search process. For this search, however, we were able to see an entire set of photos from a single concert and multiple sources, which was pretty interesting.

What do our readers think? Are similar images helpful to you in your quest for better image searches?

Hitwise's latest data also confirms that Google's market share in the search business is continuing to grow at a steady clip (9% year-over-year). Year-over-year, all of Google's larger competitors lost ground, though at least between December and January, both Yahoo and Ask.com saw a very minor increase in their market share.

Longer Search Queries

Year-over-year, using one and two-word search engine queries became slightly less popular, while the number of three-word queries remained flat. Instead, a growing number of users are now opting to use longer queries. Overall, longer search queries have increased ten percent over the last year.

This is an interesting trend, and it could be interpreted in a variety of way. This could mean that a growing number of users is finding less value in the search results they get from relatively unspecific, short queries. It could also indicate that users are becoming more sophisticated in how they structure their queries when they are looking for very specific answers.

Do you have a theory why more users are turning to longer search queries? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

To be clear, this update is for universal image results only - not Google Image search itself. "Universal" results refer to the search results you receive when doing a traditional search on www.google.com. Introduced back in 2007, the term refers to the combined search results from multiple verticals, including image search, news, video search, and the other specialized engines linked from the top of Google's homepage. With universal search, you only have to refer to one set search results page to see all the relevant information on a particular topic. The page serves as the jumping off point for whatever knowledge you're after - whether that's a photo, a video, the latest news, or just good ol' fashioned information.

The updated image search results represent a minor change to Google's interface and one that many mainstream users may not have even noticed. But every little tweak that Google makes is only done after extensive testing. In this case, the update allows for one more image to appear in the universal image results box. One image may not seem like a major improvement, but it could mean the difference between a user clicking through to see more or abandoning their Google Search altogether. (You would be surprised how quickly some users give up on a non-productive search. Forget refining queries, they just go elsewhere or stop their search entirely!).

Google Announcement's Timing Aimed to Deflate Interest in Bing

It's also notable that Google is announcing this change around the same time as Microsoft plans to make another announcement regarding updated features for Bing, the company's new search engine. Since its launch earlier this year, the Bing Search Team at Microsoft has been busy rolling out updates that have included things like a revamped mobile search, improvements to maps, integration with math engine Wolfram Alpha, Twitter integration, and a new visual search interface. As most of these announcements were made, Google would make an announcement of their own - for example, how they were planning on adding Twitter to their results, too. And when Bing announced Visual Search, Google posted to their blog about a Google Experiment called "Fast Flip" which lets you visually peruse print articles online.

There's no doubt that the timing of this latest, albeit minor, news about Image Search improvements has to do at least partially with the upcoming Bing announcement. Clearly, we have entered a new era of "search wars." As angel investor Ron Conway noted earlier this fall at the TC50 conference, this time war is a good thing: "I think the huge winner here will be consumers because competition breeds innovation, and this nice little battle between Google and Microsoft is fantastic for consumers."

So a search technology that actually looked at a picture and could understand what was in it -- or at least match like images -- would have a large number of practical applications. Picollator's online demo is based on software of the same name from parent company Recogmission. The demo allows users to upload an image of a face to the site, and then attempts to match it to similar images it has gathered from around the web.

One of the main issues we've noticed with most of these facial recognition products is their inability to deal with my facial hear -- sometimes even thinking that my dark beard is really an indication of my skin tone. So I was excited when Picollator matched me to a picture of Russell Crowe. I don't really look like Crowe, but believe it or not, people actually used to tell me I did back in college.

Unfortunately for Picollator, subsequent tests with different images were less successful. It had trouble dealing with an older picture of mine (though to be fair it had less face and more body), and also didn't respond well to a black and white picture. And if their software really is accurate, I am dating a girl who basically looks like any celebrity that smiles.

What that means is basically that image recognition software still has a long way to go. Certainly, these technologies will improve over time, but for now, the flawed approach of text based image search from Google, Yahoo! and the other big search engines is probably the best way to go.

While most people visiting the site right now will be interested in the unfolding events in Iran following an alleged fraudulent presidential election there, you can search virtually any subject you choose. There is a dedicated "breaking news" search right below the search bar, as well as other more "nifty" searches for things like "WTF", "funny", "Vegas", "OMG", "love", "Obama", "beach", etc. But beware, if you are more of the adventurous sort then try to search for something like "boobs" but remember this; you can't unsee what might appear before you and that could be quite disturbing. Better just stick to current international events and tech stuff, people. Trust me.

Be sure to follow @picbrk updates on Twitter for more information.

One trend that ASE editor Charles Knight is beginning to see is that some of the alts are getting larger. Charles noted: "We have always said that there are 4-5 major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Ask) and 100 Top ASE. But we may have to revisit that. Some ASE (maybe - blinkx, GigaBlast, Exalead, picsearch, Answers.com, Eurekster, Quintura - this is a new concept) seem to be growing larger than a typical ASE, but are not ‚Äúmajor‚Ä? yet either."

Exalead was chosen as the Search Engine of the Month for October - it is a Web and image search engine.

Check out the entire list and accompanying analysis over on AltSearchEngines.

Long tail of searches - 95%. eg head queries: hurricane rita, maps, song lyrics.

Long tail of verticals (or categories). Also long tail of revenue - "most of revenue still made in the head". 30% of searches drive 70% of search revenue. "still very very early" in the marketplace.

Head query: 1.57 keywords, tail is 5.01 keywords. More compeition (obviously) for head keywords.

25% of clicks on Ask index went to only 330k URLs. 50% clicks went to very small head (search results).

Only 1% of users use advanced search. Instead users iterate.

UI. 2% use the tabs. header 15% CTR. 35% CTR for image bar. 45% CTR for main search area. 15% CTR on right-hand vertical bar (where Google puts their ads, but Ask puts content). Jim says it's a 1-2% CTR for Google ads on right, by comparison.

Jim will put all this data on their site later today.

The new feature will apply to sites that have a large number of relevant posts for a user's search query. Users will see the topic of the thread, the number of posts, and the date the thread was posted.

According to Google's post from director of product management Johanna Wright, "We hope this feature gives you a deeper view into the relevant content available on sites throughout the web - even when that content spans multiple pages or discussions. At the same time, the main search results are diverse as always - so if you can't pinpoint a useful comment there's a list of relevant sites there to help."

The feature seems simple enough, but it's a relevant and welcome addition to Google's search offering and an interesting commentary on the SEO value of forum discussions. In a recent video interview with Vanilla forum software creator Mark O'Sullivan, we chatted in depth on the evergreen nature and value of forum discussions, especially in terms of search.

We can speculate that the Google team might be working on a similar solution for Q&A sites; it would only make sense.

Maybe this is not a bad thing. Bing clearly excels in some area (travel, health, and shopping, for example) and can easily compete head-to-head with Google when it comes to standard web searches. At the same time, Google's virtual monopoly position in the search arena (even if it's a natural one) wasn't likely to go unchallenged, and wasn't likely to pan out in a positive way for consumers. Now, if we trust these results from Compete's analysis, more users are using a larger variety of search engines instead of just relying solely on Google, which can only be a good thing.

As Rich Devine from ZAAZ points out in the Compete post, some of the early curiosity around Bing was surely driven by Microsoft's marketing campaign around the service. The data, however, also shows that quite a few users are willing to look at alternatives to their favorite search engines.

Not a Typical Week for Search

We have to note, though, that the last week of June was not a typical week for search engines, as the death's of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett drove more users to search engines, and this brought Bing's audience to over 27 million, up from 21 million in the week right after its launch.

As of now, Google's users aren't running away from the service and making Bing their exclusive search engine, and neither are Bing's users completely loyal to their service. In terms of its overall audience, Bing is also still small compared to Google, but this data shows that users might be more willing to explore alternatives than we used to think.