by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, October 6, 2017

Google introduced the Pixelbook laptop this week, and along with the laptop, a searchable stylus pen. The Pixelbook Pen is similar to the Microsoft Surface Book and the Surface Book pen, but Google’s pen will search for images when the user circles the image on the screen.

The stylus lets users draw and write on the Pixelbook’s touchscreen, and ties in with Google Assistant. And in the latest spin on image search, users can ask the Assistant to search for more information on images or snippets of text by circling them.

It’s unclear whether this type of search will trigger advertisements in the long term, but search engine optimization professionals will certainly have a new challenge to optimize images, keywords and snippets to serve up in this type of query.

“While the newness of this feature makes it difficult determine what optimization criteria may apply, at minimum it’s another exclamation point on the importance on visual search within the SEO practice,” says Paul Witham, director of SEO at Marc USA Results:Digital. “For many, myself included, image optimization was one of those ‘nice to haves,’ but often a secondary tactic, which is no longer the case. So in terms of the Pixelbook Pen, until the optimization picture becomes a little clearer, the best bet for SEOs would be to focus on Schema markup, surrounding context and other image best practices.”

The pen recognizes the text snippet or image circles and returns a partial screen with visual search options such as links to publications, as well as the ability to further a search on google.com, YouTube, Instagram and to search for songs and share the content with others.

Google partnered with Wacom, which builds interactive pen displays and tablets styluses, to design the Pen. It uses machine learning for handwriting recognition.

Visual search will advance within the coming year. Google Lens, which will come to Google’s Pixel phone in a preview version later this year, was introduced at the last I/O conference.

Lens combines image recognition with Google Assistant and the real-time translation of Google Translate. It lets users snap a picture of a tree and it will provide details on the species such as its indigenous nature.

Pinterest also offers a product called Lens. The company raised $150 million in a funding round in June, and much of this likely was directed toward building out its Lens product to support Target, said Michael Parrish DuDell, entrepreneur and chief strategic officer at CouponFollow.

Target recently announced a partnership with Pinterest. Calling it a clever idea, he said Target is working with Pinterest to determine the best way to bridge online with offline, as well as an easier way for consumers to find identical or similar products from an image.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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