Google Upgrades Image Search: New Recent Image Filter & Old Filters Return

Google has recently been emphasizing current/fresh images in its image search product, and that effort continued today with the announcement of a new time-based filter. And unannounced is the re-appearance of other filters that went missing in Google’s recent redesign.

Let’s start with the new filter: Among the image search filters in the left-side column is a new “Past week” option that surfaces recent photos added to Google’s image search index. You can see it at the bottom of this screenshot:

Meanwhile, up above that filter are options to filter image by Type (face, photo, clip art or line drawing) and a couple Size options — “Larger than…” and “Exactly…” — that let users specify pixel dimensions as part of the search query. The two Size options disappeared from the left-side column when Google recently began its site redesign, and could only be found from the Advanced Image Search page. I’m pretty sure that was also the case with the Type options.

Google has been focusing on fresh images in recent months. Back in December, the company confirmed that it was updating the image search index more quickly. In April, Google began adding time stamps to the fresh images in its search results.