14 DAY TRIAL // Google is finally adding a feature to its Image Search that many users wanted and one that the competition (Yahoo Image Search) has been boasting for a few months now, the possibility to refine your search with a Creative Commons filter. In the advanced search section there are now several options for open licensed images, which should really please bloggers or anyone who wants to reuse an image.
“This feature allows you to restrict your Image Search results to images that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons, making it easier to discover images from across the web that you can share, use and even modify. Your search will also include works that have been tagged with other licenses, like GNU Free Documentation license, or are in the public domain,” Lance Huang and George Ruban, software engineers at Google, wrote.
The new filters are available in the Advanced Search section and allow users to search for photos under a variety of open licenses for content that can be reused for free. There are several options like searching for images that are licensed for reuse, modification and even commercial reuse. The licensing of a photo may not be important for most people but for bloggers who want to use an image in one of their posts but can't afford to license a professional one, and would rather not steal it either, this is one of the best features an image search engine can have.
Yahoo Image Search has had a similar feature since May, Yahoo-owned Flickr obviously has one too, but this should give users more freedom as there are those who would prefer the Google solution. Also interesting to note is that the search results are somewhat different between the two search engines, with Yahoo results preferring Flickr images over other sources, which is understandable, while Google's offers a greater variety.