Not ad creep: Images labeled ‘Product’ in Google Images part of new badges markup

This article has been updated with corrections.

Users searching for products on Google Image search will now notice that sometimes images appearing at the top of the results are labeled with a “Product”. This is part of the new badge markup Google introduced earlier this week. They look a lot like ads, and I mistook these for ads, too, when first reporting on this.

The images appear with a tag icon and “Product” label in the bottom left corner at the top of the organic image results. You can see them in this tweet from Jonathan Ellins, head of insights at Hallam Internet Ltd. who noticed them Thursday, and is also appearing in the US. Note that the Shopping ad carousel does not appear on Image results in the UK at this time as it does in the US.

Google images showing Shopping Ads on mobile #ppcchat pic.twitter.com/9bVfPFKynG

— Jonathan Ellins (@Jonathan_Ellins) August 3, 2017

Here’s what that result looks like in the US with the Shopping ad carousel above the listings.

Site owners can apply rich markup schema to their pages to show badges for products, recipes, videos and GIFs.

Google officially introduced the carousel of ads to Image search in March 2016. For advertising purposes, Google categorizes Image search as a search partner, so Shopping campaigns must be opted-in to search partners in order to appear in Image results.

Earlier today, we reported on a new look Google is testing for Shopping ads in product card units on mobile.