Microsoft redesigns Bing Image Search, now shows related searches, related Pinterest collections, places to buy products in images, and more
Be inspired, learn more and do more through image search — Glacier National Park Photo: Dave Sizer/Creative Commons
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's 2015 redesign turns Bing Image Search from a lookup box into a browsable surface: related searches, curated Pinterest collections, and product-buying links now sit inside the results page itself. The Pinterest tie-in matters because Pinterest had been building exactly this muscle — its browser extension for searching products with any image arrived two years later as the same visual-commerce idea pushed onto users' browsers.
Microsoft kept compounding the bet, folding richer imagery into Bing's Intelligent Image Search update in late 2017. The arc closes a decade later when Google ships a Pinterest-like gallery redesign of Google Images — evidence that the 2015 template, not any one feature, won.
First-order effects
- Bing image searchers can browse onward through related searches and Pinterest collections without reformulating a query, while merchants shown in images get a direct 'places to buy' path from picture to purchase.
- Pinterest gains distribution inside a rival search engine's results, reaching shoppers who never visit pinterest.com.
Second-order effects
- Google Images faces pressure to match the browsing-style experience rather than a grid of outbound thumbnails — pressure that culminates in its own Pinterest-style gallery redesign a decade later.
- Product discovery shifts further into image SERPs, moving shopping-intent traffic away from merchant sites and text-based comparison pages toward whatever surface renders the picture first.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, image search consolidates around platform-plus-partnership structures: search engines aggregate third-party content collections and commerce layers instead of simply linking out, turning image results into destination pages in their own right.
The trend: Image search is converging with visual-discovery platforms like Pinterest, as engines rebuild results pages around browsing, collections, and embedded commerce.