Google Image Search
Ranked 25 of 38 search engines by recommenders
People recommend it for reverse image lookup and finding direct matches with few false positives. Critics say image search has gotten worse over time and is useless for some.
People recommend it for reverse image lookup and finding direct matches with few false positives. Critics say image search has gotten worse over time and is useless for some.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good results compared to competitors
“It's pretty good compared to its competitors.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update” “you get good results also”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Prompt-to-Excalidraw demo with Gemma 4 E2B in the browser (3.1GB)” Matching uploaded images
“Occasionally use google image search for matching an uploaded image.”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore” “putting the image through Google Image Search as an alternative”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “SynthID Detector”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Image search getting worse over time
“Google doesn't care about image search and actively makes it worse often”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation” “their image search is useless for me however”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Does Google bury relevant results 3 pages deep?”
Other search engines people recommend
The four most recommended other search engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | 732 | 234 | 76% | 13 | 2 yrs106 owners | Approved |
| Google Search | 315 | 1,039 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs25 owners | — |
| DuckDuckGo | 286 | 204 | 58% | 12 | 3.5 yrs47 owners | — |
| Hister | 81 | 9 | 90% | 9 | 2 mo17 owners | Approved |
| Google Image SearchThis page | 9 | 5 | 64% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“putting the image through Google Image Search as an alternative”
“Google also removed the ability to paste images into Google Image search some years ago for no apparent reason”
“It's pretty good compared to its competitors.”
“seems to sastify my search requirements while keeping my payment info private”
“Only if you consider Google Image Search and Google Nano Banana to be "the same thing"”
“Occasionally use google image search for matching an uploaded image.”
“you could take a picture of a lightbulb and pop it in google search and it would tell you what kind it was”
“you get good results also”
“Google doesn't care about image search and actively makes it worse often”
“super plausible to find direct hits without many false positives”
“This is honestly one of the biggest reasons that I ever use google”
“Google, Amazon and Bing searches all returning shirts with stripes”
“their image search is useless for me however”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.