You love a picture of a cute cat you downloaded years ago, but its quality is not good enough to share on your social media. You want to find this picture online to download it again in high quality, but you are unsure how to search for it. Don’t worry! We have all been there.
Just searching for a “cute Persian cat image” will generate thousands of results, and the chances of you finding the exact same image will be slim.
What if I told you that you could perform a search using this very image to increase your chances of finding an exact match. This kind of search is called reverse image search
What is a reverse image search
In a reverse image search, an image is used in place of text for performing a search. Reverse Image Search can be used for finding the original source of an image. Other pages that have published this image will also show up in the search results.
You can utilize reverse Image search for finding the image in different sizes and image quality. A reverse Image search generates results similar to a text-based search.
As you can see in the search results, all the Web pages that have published this picture are showing up. You can also use the image search filter to look for similar images. A possible related search is also a part of the search results.
In this case, the possible related search is “one mansion Los Angeles.”
Reverse Image search was first introduced in June 2011 by Google. But many people are still unaware that such a feature exists.
Google calls it “Search by image.” A reverse image search can be performed in various ways. Search engines like Google and Bing support this feature. Many other websites also let you perform a search using Images.
Google reverse image search
Google’s search by image feature is exclusively available for desktop users. You cannot use this feature using a cell phone, but there are many other ways to perform a reverse image search with a mobile phone.
For performing a reverse image search on Google, Simply open your browser on your desktop or laptop. Type in https://images.google.com/ in the search bar and press enter.
Click on the camera icon, and you can upload the image directly from your desktop, or you can add a link to the picture.
If you want to use a downloaded image, select “upload an image.” Google will automatically perform the search after you upload the image.
If you are using Google Chrome as your browser and want to search for an Image present on the web. You don’t have to follow the steps mentioned above.
Simply right-click the image and select “search Google for Image.”
Search results will be displayed within a fraction of a second.
This method is strictly limited to the Images present on the web. If you want to search for a photo present on your desktop, you’ll have to use the previous method.
Google has 1.9 billion active users, which makes it the most used browser in the world.
But many people prefer to use other browsers such as Bing. Big accounts for an almost 6.15 percent market share globally.
For Bing users, here’s a guide to performing reverse image search using bing
Reverse image search in Bing
Bing is a popular search engine, especially in countries where Google is not accessible. Bing also allows its users to perform a search using an image. Bing’s reverse image search is called “Visual search.”
For using Bing’s visual search feature, follow the steps given bellow
- Go to https://www.bing.com/
In the search bar, select the second icon, the one with a dot in the center.
The visual search feature will open up. You’ll notice a new option in the visual search that was missing in Google’s Image Search, which is the take photo option.
The other options are pretty similar to Google’s. You can either upload a photo or add an URL. If you want to upload the image, select “Browse.” Then drag and drop the image you wish to search.
As soon as you drop the image, Microsoft Bing will perform the search
There is a significant difference between Goggle’s image-based search results and Bing’s image-based search results.
Bing’s search results are image-focused as opposed to Google’s search results. Bing pulls out any text from the image and also gives suggestions in the form of related searches.
Next up, we’ll cover reverse image search using Yandex.
Yandex’s reverse image search
Yandex is a very popular search engine, and you can efficiently perform a reverse image search using Yandex.
Go to https://yandex.com/
Then select Images from the icons above.
After this window opens up. Select the camera icon that is present in the search bar.
You are given three options to choose from.
- Select file
- Paste from clipboard
- Enter image URL
As soon as you upload an image, results will be displayed.
Yandex’s image search is primarily focused on the attributes of the image itself. In search results, information about the image is displayed, such as its size and related searches.
Further down the search page, web pages with similar images are displayed.
Other than Google, Bing, and Yandex, many third-party websites allow users to perform reverse image searches.
Third-party websites for reverse image search
There are many third-party websites on which you can perform a reverse image search. Most of these websites only work for desktop users. Some websites are excellent in this regard, others not so much.
Some famous ones are
- Pinterest visual search
- Getty Images
- Picsearch
- TinEye reverse image search
- Prepostseo
Out of all of these, TinEye is the easiest to use. The reverse image search in TinEye is similar to the reverse image search in Google.
For using TinEye, go to https://tineye.com/
You’ll be given two options. You can choose between “upload” or “enter URL.”
Search results will be displayed after you enter a URL or upload an image.
Search results provided by TinEye are very similar to the search results of other search engines.
TinEye also offers many paid features if you want more accurate search results.
All of the methods we have covered so far are for Desktop users, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t perform a reverse image search using a mobile device.
Reverse image search on a smartphone
You can perform a reverse image search with a smartphone, but the process will be a little different.
The easiest way to do it is through a Google Chrome app. Install it from the play or app store if you don’t have it installed on your device.
Google’s reverse image search will not work on opera, safari, or any other browsers. There are two methods for performing this search
- Using the desktop version on mobile
- Using the right-click method
For using the desktop version, Go to images.google.com and select the menu from the right corner. From the drop-down options, select “request the desktop version.”
After the desktop version opens up, follow the instructions provided for reverse image search on the desktop.
To use the “right-click” method on mobile, open up the image you want to search. Press and hold the picture, and after a menu appears, select “search Google for this image.”
This method is restricted to the images found on the internet.
For mobile users, certain apps can be used to perform a reverse engine search. One of the most-used ones is the “Google lens.” Google lens can perform several tasks, and reverse image search is one of them. You can download this app from the Google play store or ios store and use it for reverse image search.
Bottom line
Reverse image search is a handy feature provided by many search engines. You can quickly get information regarding any image by performing a reverse image search. This feature was initially introduced a decade ago, but many people are still unaware of its existence.
A reverse image search can be used to find similar images, find dimensions of an image, find metadata of an image, pull text from an image to translate it, discover how many sites have published this image, check if the image is royalty-free or not and find the original source of an image.
In your opinion, which search engine has the best reverse image search?
