Image Search recently launched “Similar items” on mobile web and the Android Search app. The “Similar items” feature is designed to help users find products they love in photos that inspire them on Google Image Search. Using machine vision technology, the Similar items feature identifies products in lifestyle images and displays matching products to the user.

Julia E, product manager on Google Image Search, announced on the Google search blog that you need to use schema.org product metadata on your pages and schema.org/Product markup to make sure your products are eligible for inclusion on these image results. Specifically:

• Ensure that the product offerings on your pages have schema.org product markup, including an image reference. Products with name, image, price & currency, and availability meta-data on their host page are eligible for Similar items.
• Test your pages with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to verify that the product markup is formatted correctly.
• See your images on image search by issuing the query “site:yourdomain.com.” For results with valid product markup, you may see product information appear once you tap on the images from your site. It can take up to a week for Googlebot to recrawl your website.

Right now, Similar items is available on mobile browsers and the Android Google Search App globally, and they plan to expand to more platforms in 2017.

If you have questions, find them in the dedicated Structured data section of their forum, on Twitter, or on Google+ or speak to a Digital Marketing expert here at Onimod global today.