New algorithm and accusations of censorship (2012–present) 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. 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. In May 2011, Google introduced a sort by subject feature for a visual category scheme overview of a search query. On July 20, 2010, Google made another update to the interface of Google Images, which hid image details until mouseover. On October 27, 2009, Google Images added a feature to its image search that can be used to find similar images. 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 mouseover its thumbnail. This grew to 1 billion images by 2005 and over 10 billion images by 2010.

That year, 250 million images were indexed in Image Search.

Google paired a recently hired engineer Huican Zhu with product manager Susan Wojcicki (now the former CEO of YouTube) to build the feature, and they launched Google Image Search in July 2001.

Google's developers worked on developing this further, and 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. In 2000, Google Search results were limited to simple pages of text with links. History Beginnings and expansion (2001–2011) When the user clicks on a thumbnail, the image is displayed in a larger size, and users may visit the webpage on which the image is used. When searching for an image, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed. In 2011, reverse image search functionality was added. It was introduced on July 12, 2001, due to a demand for pictures of the green Versace dress of Jennifer Lopez worn in February 2000. Google Images (previously Google Image Search) is a search engine owned by Google that allows users to search the World Wide Web for images.

Advanced image search upload