Yahoo announced today an upgrade to its image search engine which now includes a combination of web results as well as images from its photo-sharing site Flickr, including your own photos. The way the service works is that signed-in users will see desktop search results that offer a combination of Flickr’s top public photos, images from people you follow on Flickr, and a selection of your own images.
Yahoo will only pull from your own personal photos if you have images relevant to your search. And, of course, the company is not going to all of a sudden surface your private photos when others type in a similar query. Photos will still respect your established privacy settings.
The Yahoo image search experience is similar to the revamped user interface Flickr rolled out in May across its online and mobile properties, which also returned Flickr.com search results from these same three categories (public, people you follow, and personal photos.)
In addition, says Yahoo, searchers will be able to utilize advanced filters alongside their query, like color and size, for example, plus they can filter by usage by selecting the appropriate items from the “License” drop-down.
Another new feature is the “more images” button that now appears on each category of Flickr image results and links directly to Flickr.com for more photos. That should increase the traffic sent to Flickr – helpful at a time when the site is struggling to maintain its leadership position in a world where it now competes with Apple’s iCloud/Photostream and Google Photos, which have the advantage of being built-in or deeply integrated into users’ most regularly used cameras: their smartphones.
The new Yahoo image search feature is live now for U.S. desktop users only.
The change comes shortly after Flickr rolled out an updated iOS application which now takes advantage of iOS 9 features, as well as introduces support for 3D Touch.