Designed as a major advancement in mobile navigation, Google's new feature, "Circle to Search," will change how we perform searches on smartphones. Available from January 31, 2024 on premium Android devices, including the Pixel 8 and Samsung Galaxy S24 series, this innovation represents a new milestone in visual search.
Let's take stock of Circle to Search, a feature that integrates seamlessly into the Search Generative Experience and is likely to impact SEO, especially product search!
How does Circle to Search work?
The Circle to Search innovation, driven by Google's mission to make the world's information accessible and useful, is part of a series of advances in artificial intelligence.
Circle to Search was introduced as a natural and intuitive way to express searches with simple gestures on your Android phone's screen.
To activate the feature, simply press the dedicated button at the bottom right of the screen. A circular cursor then appears, which you can move and resize with your fingers to encircle the element you want to search for.
You can then choose from several possible actions:
- Circle: to launch a standard Google search on the selected item.
- Highlight: provides additional information about the item, such as its definition, origin, or price.
- Scribble: get specific information about an object in the photo.
- Tap: quickly find information about a product shown on screen (particularly useful for videos).
This approach makes searching much smoother and more user-friendly, allowing users to find information while browsing social media, watching a video, or sending a text.
Circle to Search, Multisearch and AI
Multisearch, introduced in Google Lens in 2022, has evolved significantly thanks to advances in AI.
Previously, this technology allowed users to modify image-based queries — for example, searching for a black evening dress from a photo of a similar red dress.
The enhanced version of Multisearch now merges image and text searches, creating AI-enriched responses. This development lets you ask in-depth questions about visual elements to obtain comprehensive, detailed answers.
For example, if you encounter an exotic plant while hiking, a quick photo and a question in Multisearch can reveal the plant's name as well as its medicinal properties or natural habitat.
The Multisearch update, available this week in the United States in English, is accessible to everyone without needing to sign up via Search Labs. To use it, simply look for the Lens camera icon in the Google app on Android and iOS. Of course, Multisearch is also integrated via Circle to Search. Perfect!
Circle to Search: what impact on SEO and product search?
The arrival of Circle to Search could have significant implications for SEO, especially product search. In other words: e-commerce owners will need to adapt to this more visual and contextual mode of searching.
Consider changes in buyer behavior
Circle to Search could change user search behavior, making users more likely to search for products directly from their screen rather than using textual keywords.
Offering content adapted to these new search intents, highlighting the visual characteristics of products, is the key to appearing at the top of the results.
Make product identification easier
To optimize their visibility and appeal following the arrival of Circle to Search, online stores will — more than ever — need to ensure the quality and relevance of their photos. Products must be sharp, recognizable and easily identifiable by AI to allow users to obtain as much information as possible.
Items for sale must therefore stand out from the overall visual so they can be isolated both by users and by Google. The quality and sharpness of the images will also be decisive for SEO... and conversion!
Add as much context as possible to images
Appropriate keywords in the file name and image title, descriptive alt tags, and enriched structured data become essential to appear at the top of results offered by a "Circle to Search".
Google must be able to understand the photo and compare it to the user's query. The more descriptive you are, the more the AI can link different images and display your products to a qualified audience.
Our tip to optimize your SEO for the arrival of Circle to Search
Circle to Search is only the beginning of a new era in mobile search, which aims to make searching smarter and more natural. It’s easy to imagine this feature being improved and extended to other apps or services like Google Maps, Google Photos or Google Assistant.
Prepare now! To stay ahead of the competition, optimize your images to provide a rich contextual environment. Ideally, call on an SEO specialist by posting an ad now on our freelance platform, Codeur.com!
