Google Lens and Circle to Search gains more links, facts and AI Overviews

Not only are the search results more graphical, they have richer information for these more interactive ways of searching.

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Google is rolling out upgrades to Google Lens and Circle to Search, adding more links, knowledge panel information and even the new AI Overviews to the search results generated by Lens and Circle to Search. “We’ve been expanding the type of results you can get with Lens & Circle to Search,” Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering at Google announced.

What it looks like. He shared a video of it in action on X, here it is:

Google More Graphical Search Results 1716248779

More details. Rajan shared this example, “if you search for a photo of a landmark with Lens, the results now include a knowledge panel and web links about that place, as though you had searched for the name of the building itself.”

“What’s great is that by broadening the types of results we’re showing, it gives more websites the opportunity to show up and get clicks, if they’ve got the best info for that visual question. It also helps us answer a broader set of questions than we could in the past,” he added.

He promised that the Google Lens and Circle to Search results richer results will be expanded to even more categories. “In the weeks ahead, you’ll see more updates to visual query results, including helpful filters for different types of content, similar to what you already get on Search for text queries,” he wrote.

Why we care. Google gives you many different ways to search, you don’t need to just type your query into a search box. You can take photos and search with Google Lens, you can draw on those photos or screenshots with Circle to Search and many other ways to search.

As people search these alternative ways, knowing the search features like knowledge panels, AI Overviews and more links are available to potentially drive traffic to your site, is a good thing.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
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.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

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