Google Images: Search By Image Not Working For Many

Google’s Search By Image feature is currently not functioning for many searchers. The search by image feature allows a searcher to take an image from their computer or plug in an image source URL into Google Images and Google will return related images, with web pages that may have more information about the image. The […]

search-by-image-logoGoogle’s Search By Image feature is currently not functioning for many searchers.

The search by image feature allows a searcher to take an image from their computer or plug in an image source URL into Google Images and Google will return related images, with web pages that may have more information about the image. The feature launched in June 2011 and has been a pretty big hit since.

Now, it appears, that many searchers who are trying to use it are being sent away. When you upload an image, Google returns the message “The image must be in one of the following formats: .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .tif, or .webp.” Google returns this message even if you do upload an image in those formats.

Here is a picture of me trying this myself today:

google-image-by-image-broken-1381752831

A Google spokesperson in the Google forums responded to the complaints this past Friday, saying “The team is aware of the issue and is currently working on a fix. Things should be back to normal soon.” As of this morning, the issue is still around for many.

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About the Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

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