In June, Google rolled out the reverse image search as a new feature, enabling users to “explore the web in an entirely new way” which basically comes down to allowing one to scan the internet and scour for instances of any particular image in use. Some raving reviews already praise this service as a free, and superior, instrument to Tineye, while others underline its usefulness in fighting rampant copyright infringement on the internet.

I set out to give it a try, and I am somewhat surprised by the results for my first, particular reverse image search, using an image of bacon I took earlier this month. Apparently Google thinks that –

Bacon similes

…Akina Minami looks like bacon on a bun.
…Jenna Elfman looks like bacon on a bun.
…a Dutch amateur model called Lynntjeee looks like bacon on a bun.
…a crying baby and a cute, little lump of sweetness look like bacon on a bun.
…a wooden toy kitchen looks like bacon on a bun.
…some jam-filled macarons look like bacon on a bun. (I have to admit, I took them to be mini burgers which seemed the best approximation so far among Google’s search results.)
…pencil shavings look like bacon on a bun.

It certainly looks like a wide array of wild guesses to me. I can only conclude, that Google’s image comparison algorithms, along with its database, still need some wee bit of fine-tuning.