Associations Game by Yandex.Images

For a rather broad search term, like “summer”, Yandex.Images would offer associations for narrower concepts, like “beach” or “sea”. If there are several equally obvious ways to satisfy a user query, the image search may suggest refinement options. For example, for the search term “shell” the user will be offered to choose among images of Shell’s logo, Shell’s oil or sea shells and pearls. Yandex.Images finds associations matching user queries automatically based on the analysis of three million searches daily.

“The new version of our image search better understands the users’ needs, as well as the structure of the Internet,” says Fedor Romanenko, Yandex.Images principal developer. “Currently, half of all images in the Russian Internet have copies, and popular images like pictures of products, celebrity photographs or flags, have dozens or even hundreds of copies. Yandex.Images technology recognizes duplicates picking out only the most popular images, which helps diversify search results, increasing their overall relevance”.

You can read more about new image search technologies in Yandex’s blog (available only in Russian).

Yandex search currently indexes about half a billion images. Yandex.Images has a daily audience in excess of one million users. Yandex’s image search has also recently become available on mobile devices.

Contacts:
Elena Kolmanovskaya, Chief Editor
Dina Litvinova, Head of Yandex PR
Phone: +7 495 739-70-00
Fax: +7 495 739-70-70
E-mail: [email protected]