Google reverse image search API

Question

Is there an API for reverse search? if not how can I make reverse image search requests from an android app?

Answer 1

i have implemented a "Reverse Search JSON REST API using Google Image Search via HTTP".

it is actually very simple to do using "httpunit" framework that is even running javascript on the server. this is needed to execute the Google image search request

https://images.google.com/searchbyimage?image_url=

it worked very well. we Have integrated it into an App that

• was just simply doing a picture,
• shrink it,
• upload it to public server,
• use this URL
• call REST API + get JSON response (see below)
• display text and similar images

the server

• goes to Google image server (via HTTP) with internet-accessible-URL
• run https://images.google.com/searchbyimage?image_url=image encoded url
• get response, run javascript from Google on server
• search for specific html-tags, classes or IDs
• create JSON response

You get from Google

• the "tag / title" ,
• similar images with all meta data (text snippet, html snippet, original URL, thumbnail URL, size, dimensions, ...)

with these information you can display easily the detected tag, similar online images with its texts.

but: unfortunatly Google's machine detection is very good and found my REST-API and closed it.

so for now - Google did not announced an API for this, even it is included in existing Google Apps - very very SAD

Answer 2

You may find the following project useful. It's essentially a scraper server which you send the url of an image to (using curl for instance) and it returns a json array with various useful tidbits.

http://mrisa.mage.me.uk/