22 Best WordPress Themes for Universities

Are you looking for the best WordPress theme for universities and colleges? There are plenty of WordPress themes designed for corporate and small businesses, but they are not suitable for an educational organization. In this article, we have hand picked some of the best WordPress themes for universities and colleges that you can use.

Building a University or College Website with WordPress

WordPress is used by world’s top universities and colleges. It is easy to set up, open source, and can be easily customized for an educational organization.

However, you need to make sure that you are using the right version of WordPress. A self hosted WordPress.org website gives you complete freedom to use all features of WordPress.

Self hosted WordPress.org website needs a domain name and hosting account. Many large universities have their own servers to host university websites.

However if you are just creating a website for your class, then you can also sign up with a WordPress hosting company. We recommend using Bluehost.

They are one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

After signing up for a hosting account, you can move on to install WordPress. Follow the instructions in our step by step guide on how to make a website and you will be ready to launch in no time.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress themes to use for a university or college website.

1. Educampus

Educampus is a simple WordPress theme for colleges and universities. It features a modern design with a full width slider on the top, which is followed by different sections. It uses beautiful templates for different pages like homepage, a separate blog page, and a contact form page.

Theme setup is quite simple and includes a one-click demo content installer. It also ships with a drag and drop page builder plugin and a premium WordPress slider.

2. EduPro

Edu Pro is a WordPress theme designed specifically for educational websites. Its homepage contains a large slider on top with your call to action button. It displays your recent news, courses, and student testimonials in a grid layout.

It includes custom widgets to for recent posts by category and newsletter signup form. It is quite easy to set up with a custom theme options panel and a drag and drop page builder.

3. Lacero

Lacero is a modern WordPress theme for universities and college. It comes with a beautiful homepage layout with a large slider on top and beautiful CSS animations as you scroll down the page.

The theme includes beautiful templates for different pages such as courses, events, and about pages. It has custom widgets, shortcodes, testimonials, and comes with a drag and drop page builder to create custom page layouts.

4. Motive

Motive is a multipurpose WordPress theme. It is designed to be flexible and easily customizable for different kind of websites including colleges and universities.

It comes in 2 different styles and includes powerful features like a premium slider plugin, post formats, sticky navigation, parallax effects, custom post types, and more.

Its modern homepage features a beautiful top slider with call to action buttons. It comes with a custom theme options panel which walks you through the setup process. Inside you’ll also find pricing tables, portfolio template, team members, and contact form.

5. High School

High School is a modern and stylish WordPress theme designed for schools, colleges, and universities. It has a modern homepage featuring a modular layout with graceful animations and engaging presentation.

It includes a custom theme options panel for easier setup. Other features include, Google Maps, custom widgets, sortable gallery, shortcodes, and more.

6. Academia Pro

Academia Pro is another great WordPress theme for universities and colleges. It features a widgetized 3-column homepage layout with event calendar integration. This widgetized layout can be easily setup with drag and drop custom widgets included in the theme.

There are multiple header styles to choose from with 4 layout choices for your post and pages. It also includes colors for text widgets, custom logo upload, and unlimited color choices. It is WooCommerce ready so you can also add an online store to your college website.

7. ELMS Pro

ELMS Pro is a WordPress education theme for colleges and universities. It comes with built-in LMS plugin features including courses, lessons, quizzes, students, and instructor management.

It includes 10 homepage designs, 30 header styles, and 8 layouts for different sections of your website. It ships with a page builder module with custom widgets and page block elements to drag and drop.

8. Ultra

Ultra is a powerful multipurpose WordPress theme that ships with multiple ready-made websites that can be installed with 1-click. Each design can be easily customized using its custom theme options panel and an integrated drag and drop buider.

It includes all the features you’d expect to see in a premium WordPress theme like a slider, pricing tables, progress bar, animated counters, and more. It is WooCommerce ready and packed with countless combinations of different layouts, header styles, colors, and design choices.

9. Educate

Educate is a highly flexible WordPress theme suitable for universities, colleges, and schools. It has an easy to setup homepage layout includes a drag and drop page builder which allows you to create any kind of pages with no coding required.

It also includes several header styles, unlimited colors, unlimited sidebars, icon fonts, Google fonts, custom widgets, and shortcodes. It comes with 1-click demo content importer, a custom theme options panel, and easy customization with live theme customizer.

10. The Core

The core is a mega theme packed with several ready-made website designs including one for college websites. Each of these designs can be easily installed with 1-click complete with demo content and images. It includes a powerful and easy to use drag and drop builder to customize any page you want or create new layouts.

It has tons of features with unlimited colors, countless design combinations, sliders, Google Maps, mega menus, and beautiful typography. It is translation ready and fully compatible with WooCommerce.

11. Edukado

Edukado is designed to be a flexible WordPress education theme for universities and colleges. It comes ready to be used with WooCommerce, LMS, and membership plugins, which allow you to sell online courses.

It includes ready to use templates for courses, course details, shop front, archives, and blog pages. Want to create more landing pages? The theme comes with premium page builder and slider plugins to create stunning layouts.

12. Presence

Presence is a multipurpose WordPress theme designed for any kind of business websites, non-profits, and universities. It includes 10 ready-made website demos including one for university or college.

It includes 6 pre-defined color schemes, 3 slider styles, 4 blog layouts, full-width and boxed layouts. You can customize anything using the live theme customizer. It is WooCommerce ready and can also be used to create multilingual websites using WPML.

13. College

College is a WordPress education theme for schools, colleges, and university websites. It comes with built-in sections to add courses, classes, instructors, staff profiles, and class schedules.

It includes a custom theme options panel with 1-click demo content importer. Other notable features include easy Google Analytics integration, social media buttons, custom logo, unlimited sidebars, and more.

14. Monochrome

If you are looking for minimalist design, then take a look at Monochrome. This excellent WordPress theme is built on the Genesis theme framework. It features a spacious minimalist design that would work for any kind of website you want to build.

This ecommerce ready theme comes with a fully widgetized homepage, custom widgets, and 4 dedicated widget areas. Other features include customizable headers with custom logo support, landing page template, pricing page, and more.

15. Nayma

Nayma is a multi-purpose WordPress theme suitable for all kind of websites. It comes with 8 ready-made website designs and each one of them can be easily customized using the drag and drop builder.

It includes modules for photo galleries, sliders, carousel, testimonials, call to action, and more. It is WooCommerce ready and can be used to build multilingual websites.

16. Lenscap

If you are looking for a magazine template for your university or college magazine, then check out Lenscap. It comes with a highly customizable featured content carousel on top, followed by your content categories in a beautiful layout.

It includes an immersive lightbox popup for your video and image galleries. It also has beautiful content discovery features, crisp typography, and full WooCommerce support.

17. Edu Care

If you are looking for a free option, then check out Edu Care. This free WordPress theme is designed specifically for colleges and universities. It features a clean modern layout with a slider on the homepage.

It is easy to setup using the live theme customizer and supports custom backgrounds, headers, multiple sidebars, a separate blog page template, and more. It is WooCommerce ready and can be translated into other languages.

18. Neuton

If you are building a content rich website for your university or college magazine, then Neuton will be a great theme for that. It is a magazine style WordPress theme featuring a masonry grid layout.

It comes with highly customizable custom widgets for content discovery features which keep users engaged and increase your pageviews. All theme features can be easily configured using the live theme customizer. Homepage is available in two styles and can be easily setup with widgets.

19. Paperback

Paperback is another beautiful WordPress theme suitable for university magazine or content-rich websites. It comes in multiple colors and you can also use your own colors. It has a beautiful featured post carousel on the homepage to showcase your best content on the top.

It also includes category mega menu, showing recent content from categories. It has beautiful typography using Typekit fonts. It is easy to customize, and comes with only the options you’ll actually use.

20. Enlighten

Enlighten is a free WordPress theme for educational institutes. It features homepage sliders, multiple menus, carousel portfolio and service section, video gallery, and more.

It is quite easy to customize as all theme options are available under live customizer. It also includes custom backgrounds, headers, translation ready, and WooCommerce support.

21. Education Pro

Education Pro is another excellent WordPress theme for universities. It is built on Genesis theme framework, so you can rely on its rock solid base for performance and speed. It comes with multiple page templates for default, archives, blog and landing pages.

It has a custom theme options panel and it also supports live theme customizer. Theme homepage has 4 widget ready areas which allows you to just drag and drop widgets to setup homepage.

22. WP Education

WP Education is a powerful WordPress theme for educational websites, universities, and online courses. It works well with free LMS plugin which adds course management features to the theme. WP Education is also compatible with WooCommerce and Events Calendar plugin.

It has a modern homepage layout which is easily setup using theme options page. It also includes multiple custom widgets, color choices, and page layouts to choose from. It also includes a child theme for advanced customizations.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress themes for universities and colleges. You may also want to see our ultimate step by step WordPress security guide for beginners.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 22 Best WordPress Themes for Universities appeared first on WPBeginner.

source http://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/best-wordpress-themes-for-universities/

6 lesser known tools to power your content marketing

It seems like a small selection of tools just keeps traveling from article to article these days.

Opening a freshly-published article on a popular blog, I feel like I’ve already read it, because I know all the listed tools.

To celebrate “undercover” tools in the marketing industry, I picked six tools I use which I seldom or never see mentioned in other people’s articles. I think they totally deserve to be in the spotlight because they are as good as (or in most cases even better than) more discussed alternatives.

1. Cloudup to store your drafts and images

I hate to think that anyone reading this isn’t using cloud storage for work. It makes your life so much easier, allowing you to access your work from anywhere in the world as well as giving you tools to easily share your content with other team members, like editors and designers.

There’s no denying that Google is the Internet master for a reason, and their Drive service is hard for anyone to beat. But plenty of people choose not to entrust Google with their private docs for privacy reasons. Even if that’s not you, it’s never smart to put all your eggs in one basket. If your business 100% relies on Google, it’s time to change your business model.

Cloudup is a great alternative to both Dropbox and Google Drive giving you 200 GB (or up to 1000 items) of free storage which makes the service one of the largest free file sharing and storage options.

You can upload and share files, create docs and spreadsheets, use a huge number of tools and extensions, communicate with your team, and more. And it is all free up to 200 GB. You can find more alternatives here.

2. Drip to power your email marketing

It is no secret that I am not a big fan of MailChimp. I find their system overly bulky and difficult to use, while their policies are so unclear you can violate them by accident.

Drip is a nice alternative to better-known email marketing systems, giving you a lot of nice features for a comparatively low price.

It has a powerful content automation feature that lets you reach your reader at exactly the time they are likely to take an action.

3. Cyfe to publish and schedule social media updates

Cyfe is one of those tools you can use for anything under the sun. It’s like a Swiss knife that has a widget for anything, including:

• invoicing (through FreshBooks and others),
• performance monitoring (through Pingdom to monitor Uptime),
• content analytics (through Google Analytics, Alexa and many others),
• social media analytics (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, you name it!)

Additionally you can create and add custom widgets or embed anything using iFrame (for example, I embed my spreadsheets).

Their recent update has added social media publishing into the mix allowing you to schedule your social media updates right from your business monitoring dashboard. I was really excited by the move because now I don’t to have to pay for an extra social media management solution!

4. Topvisor for content optimization and competitor research

Do you have an up to date content inventory? Probably not, because creating one is a time consuming and exhausting process and tools out on the market are expensive, clunky and rarely give you an accurate inventory to work from.

Topvisor was made to solve that problem. It is a fully customizable and extensive search engine optimization solution. They have monthly plans starting at just $29. I love their page change tracking tools that allow me to monitor my competitors and what they do to rank their content higher in search engines:

It’s incredibly affordable compared to similar tools and it will keep you or your team accountable for on-page SEO of every content asset that gets published on behalf of your brand.

It also integrates with Google Analytics to give you a more flexible content analytics dashboard.

5. Salesmate to organize and verify your leads

If you are using (or plan on using) any sales management platform to organize your leads, give Salesmate a try. It’s very affordable and incredibly reach in features. Easily integrating into any imaginable content marketing tool, Salesmate offers all kinds of features aimed at improving your sales process.

Set up sales pipelines and watch your leads go from step to step to easily analyze where the process can be improved or which sales magnets your site needs.

6. EpicBeat to monitor trends

EpicBeat isn’t just a trend monitoring tool. It is a dashboard that empowers your marketing with those trends. It takes what is hot and gives you a blueprint for incorporating it into your campaigns and promotional efforts.

It also had hot topics that you can go through, which is one of my favorite ways to find content ideas when I am running dry. Simple, effective and easy to use, it is one of my favorites on this list.

Bonus: Scoop.it content marketing resources

There are a few very popular content marketing resources out there everyone tends to recommend. However I think Scoop.it content marketing center is the best out there, yet you won’t see it mentioned too often.

Scoop.it has built a major hub for resources related to content, providing a ton of tools for you to enjoy for free. In the analytics category they have two ebooks and three extensive posts explaining various facets of improving your SEO strategy when it directly coincides with your content publications.

That includes maximizing your ROI, finding leads, looking at the “right” KPI’s and more. On top of these resources you can also sign up for their dashboard, which is also about generating and converting more through content marketing. They have one for individuals, marketers and enterprises, with the first level being free.

One more bonus: more alternatives!

To celebrate people offering to spotlight less discussed alternatives, here are a few more roundups which inspired this article:

• Best Android Apps: Less known alternatives to Evernote
• Capterra: Alternatives to Trello
• Small Biz Trends: Alternatives to Google Analytics

Do you have some tools you think deserve to be on this list? Let us know in the comments.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/09/29/6-lesser-known-tools-to-power-your-content-marketing/

How to Install WordPress in a Subdirectory (Step by Step)

Do you want to install WordPress in a subdirectory? Installing WordPress in a subdirectory allows you to run multiple WordPress instances under the same domain or even a subdomain name. In this article, we will show you how to install WordPress in a subdirectory without affecting the parent domain name.

Subdomain vs Subdirectory? Which One is Better for SEO?

Normally, you would want to start a WordPress website on its own domain name (for example, wpbeginner.com). However, sometimes you may want to create additional websites on the same domain name.

This can be done by either installing WordPress in a subdomain (http://newebsite.example.com) or as a subdirectory (http://example.com/newwebsite/).

One question that we get asked is which one is better for SEO?

Search engines treat subdomains differently from root domain names and assign them rankings as a totally different website.

On the other hand, sub-directories benefit from the domain authority of the root domain thus ranking higher in most cases.

An easier way to create separate WordPress sites in both subdomain or subdirectory is by installing WordPress multisite network.

However, if you want to keep two websites managed separately, then you can install different instances of WordPress.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to install WordPress in a subdirectory.

Step 1. Create a Subdirectory under The Root Domain Name

First you need to create a subdirectory or folder under your root domain name. This is where you will install WordPress files.

Connect to your WordPress hosting account using a FTP client or File Manager in cPanel.

Once connected, go to the root folder of your website. Usually it is the /public_html/ folder. If you already have WordPress installed in the root folder, then you will see your WordPress files and folders there.

Next, you need to right click and select ‘Create new directory’ from the menu.

You need to be careful when choosing the name for your subdirectory. This will be part of your new WordPress site’s URL and what your users will type in their browsers to reach this website.

For example, if you name this directory travel-guides then your WordPress website’s address will be:

http://example.com/travel-guides/

Step 2. Upload WordPress Files

Your newly created subdirectory is empty at the moment. Let’s change that by uploading WordPress files.

First you need to visit WordPress.org website and click on the download button.

Your browser will now download the zip file containing the latest WordPress software to your computer.

After downloading the file, you need to select and extract it. Mac users can double click the file to extract it and Windows users need to right click and then select ‘Extract All’.

After extracting the zip file, you will see ‘wordpress’ folder containing all the WordPress files.

Now let’s upload these files to your new subdirectory.

Connect to your website using a FTP client and go to the subdirectory you created in the first step.

In the local files panel of your FTP client, go to to the WordPress folder you just extracted.

Select all files in the WordPress folder and then upload them to your new subdirectory.

Step 3. Create New Database

WordPress stores all your content in a database. You need to create a new database to use with your new WordPress site installed in a subdirectory.

First, you need to login to the cPanel dashboard of your WordPress hosting account. Click on ‘MySQL Databases’ under the databases section.

On the next screen, you need to provide a name for your new database and then click on ‘Create Database’ button to continue.

Your cPanel dashboard will now create the new MySQL database. In order to use this database you need to create a MySQL username.

Scroll down to MySQL Users section and provide a new username and password. Click on ‘Create User’ button to continue.

Next, you need to give this newly created user privileges to work on the database you created earlier.

Scroll down to ‘Add user to database’ section. Select your MySQL username and then select your newly created database.

Click on Add button to continue.

Cpanel will now grant the MySQL user full privileges on your newly created database.

Step 4. Install WordPress

Now that everything is in place, you can go ahead and install WordPress. Simply visit the directory you created earlier in a web browser by typing the URL like this:

http://example.com/your-subdirectory-name/

This will bring up the WordPress installation wizard. First you need to select the language for your WordPress website and click on the continue button.

Next, you will be asked to provide your WordPress database name, database username, password, and host. Enter the database details and click on the submit button.

WordPress will now connect to your database and you will see a success message like this:

Click on ‘Run the install’ button to continue.

On the next screen, you will be asked to provide a title for your website and choose an admin username, password, and email address.

After entering your website details, click on ‘Run install’ button to continue.

WordPress will now set up your website and will show you a success message:

You can now go ahead and login to your new WordPress website installed in the subdirectory.

Step 5. Fix Permalinks

If you have a separate WordPress install in the root directory, then the .htaccess files of your subdirectory will cause conflict. This will result in 404 errors on your website.

To solve this, you need to edit the .htaccess file in your subdirectory WordPress install. Replace the code inside your .htaccess file with the following code:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /your-subdirectory/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /your-subdirectory/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Don’t forget to replace /your-subdirectory/ with your own subdirectory name.

We hope this article helped you install WordPress in a subdirectory. You may also want to see our ultimate step by step WordPress SEO guide for beginners.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Install WordPress in a Subdirectory (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.

source http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-in-a-subdirectory-step-by-step/

Pinterest, Google or Bing: Who has the best visual search engine?

Visual search engines will be at the center of the next phase of evolution for the search industry, with Pinterest, Google, and Bing all announcing major developments recently. 

How do they stack up today, and who looks best placed to offer the best visual search experience?

Historically, the input-output relationship in search has been dominated by text. Even as the outputs have become more varied (video and image results, for example), the inputs have been text-based. This has restricted and shaped the potential of search engines, as they try to extract more contextual meaning from a relatively static data set of keywords.

Visual search engines are redefining the limits of our language, opening up a new avenue of communication between people and computers. If we view language as a fluid system of signs and symbols, rather than fixed set of spoken or written words, we arrive at a much more compelling and profound picture of the future of search.

Our culture is visual, a fact that visual search engines are all too eager to capitalize on.

Already, specific ecommerce visual search technologies abound: Amazon, Walmart, and ASOS are all in on the act. These companies’ apps turn a user’s smartphone camera into a visual discovery tool, searching for similar items based on whatever is in frame. This is just one use case, however, and the potential for visual search is much greater than just direct ecommerce transactions.

After a lot of trial and error, this technology is coming of age. We are on the cusp of accurate, real-time visual search, which will open a raft of new opportunities for marketers.

Below, we review the progress made by three key players in visual search: Pinterest, Google, and Bing.

Pinterest

Pinterest’s visual search technology is aimed at carving out a position as the go-to place for discovery searches. Their stated aim echoes the opening quote from this article: “To help you find things when you don’t have the words to describe them.”

Rather than tackle Google directly, Pinterest has decided to offer up something subtly different to users – and advertisers. People go to Pinterest to discover new ideas, to create mood boards, to be inspired.  Pinterest therefore urges its 200 million users to “search outside the box”, in what could be deciphered as a gentle jibe at Google’s ever-present search bar.

All of this is driven by Pinterest Lens, a sophisticated visual search tool that uses a smartphone camera to scan the physical world, identify objects, and return related results. It is available via the smartphone app, but Pinterest’s visual search functionality can be used on desktop through the Google Chrome extension too.

Pinterest’s vast data set of over 100 billion Pins provides the perfect training material for machine learning applications. As a result, new connections are forged between the physical and digital worlds, using graphics processing units (GPUs) to accelerate the process.

In practice, Pinterest Lens works very well and is getting noticeably better with time. The image detection is impressively accurate and the suggestions for related Pins are relevant.

Below, the same object has been selected for a search using Pinterest and also Samsung visual search:

The differences in the results are telling.

On the left, Pinterest recognizes the object’s shape, its material, its purpose, but also the defining features of the design. This allows for results that go deeper than a direct search for another black mug. Pinterest knows that the less tangible, stylistic details are what really interest its users. As such, we see results for mugs in different colors, but that are of a similar style.

On the right, Samsung’s Bixby assistant recognizes the object, its color, and its purpose. Samsung’s results are powered by Amazon, and they are a lot less inspiring than the options served up by Pinterest. The image is turned into a keyword search for [black coffee mugs], which renders the visual search element a little redundant.

Visual search engines work best when they express something for us that we would struggle to say in words. Pinterest understands and delivers on this promise better than most.

Pinterest visual search: The key facts

• Over 200 million monthly users
• Focuses on the ‘discovery’ phase of search
• Pinterest Lens is the central visual search technology
• Great platform for retailers, with obvious monetization possibilities
• Paid search advertising is a core growth area for the company
• Increasingly effective visual search results, particularly on the deeper level of aesthetics

Google

Google made early waves in visual search with the launch of Google Goggles. This Android app was launched in 2010 and allowed users to search using their smartphone camera. It works well on famous landmarks, for example, but it has not been updated significantly in quite some time.

It seemed unlikely that Google would remain silent on visual search for long, and this year’s I/O development revealed what the search giant has been working on in the background.

Google Lens, which will be available via the Photos app and Google Assistant, will be a significant overhaul of the earlier Google Goggles initiative.

Any nomenclative similarities to Pinterest’s product may be more than coincidental. Google has stealthily upgraded its image and visual search engines of late, ushering in results that resemble Pinterest’s format:

Google’s ‘similar items’ product was another move to cash in on the discovery phase of search, showcasing related results that might further pique a consumer’s curiosity.

Google Lens will provide the object detection technology to link all of this together in a powerful visual search engine. In its BETA format, Lens offers the following categories for visual searches:

• All
• Clothing
• Shoes
• Handbags
• Sunglasses
• Barcodes
• Products
• Places
• Cats
• Dogs
• Flowers

Some developers have been given the chance to try an early version of Lens, with many reporting mixed results:

Looks like Google doesn’t recognize its own Home smart hub… (Source: XDA Developers)

These are very early days for Google Lens, so we can expect this technology to improve significantly as it learns from its mistakes and successes.

When it does, Google is uniquely placed to make visual search a powerful tool for users and advertisers alike. The opportunities for online retailers via paid search are self-evident, but there is also huge potential for brick-and-mortar retailers to capitalize on hyper-local searches.

For all its impressive advances, Pinterest does not possess the ecosystem to permeate all aspects of a user’s life in the way Google can. With a new Pixel smartphone in the works, Google can use visual search alongside voice search to unite its software and hardware. For advertisers using DoubleClick to manage their search and display ads, that presents a very appealing prospect.

We should also anticipate that Google will take this visual search technology further in the near future.

Google is set to open its ARCore product up to all developers, which will bring with it endless possibilities for augmented reality. ARCore is a direct rival to Apple’s ARKit and it could provide the key to unlock the full potential of visual search. We should also not rule out another move into the wearables market, potentially through a new version of Google Glass.

Google visual search: The key facts

• Google Goggles launched in 2010 as an early entrant to the visual search market
• Goggles still functions well on some landmarks, but struggles to isolate objects in crowded frames
• Google Lens scheduled to launch later this year (Date TBA) as a complete overhaul of Goggles
• Lens will link visual search to Google search and Google Maps
• Object detection is not perfected, but the product is in BETA
• Google is best placed to create an advertising product around its visual search engine, once the technology increases in accuracy

Bing

Microsoft had been very quiet on this front since sunsetting its Bing visual search product in 2012. It never really took off and perhaps the appetite wasn’t quite there yet among a mass public for a visual search engine.

Recently, Bing made an interesting re-entry to the fray with the announcement of a completely revamped visual search engine:

This change of tack has been directed by advances in artificial intelligence that can automatically scan images and isolate items.

The early versions of this search functionality required input from users to draw boxes around certain areas of an image for further inspection. Bing announced recently that this will no longer be needed, as the technology has developed to automate this process.

The layout of visual search results on Bing is eerily similar to Pinterest. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Pinterest should be overwhelmed with flattery by now.

The visual search technology can hone in on objects within most images, and then suggests further items that may be of interest to the user. This is only available on Desktop for the moment, but Mobile support will be added soon.

The results are patchy in places, but when an object is detected relevant suggestions are made. In the example below, a search made using an image of a suit leads to topical, shoppable links:

It does not, however, take into account the shirt or tie – the only searchable aspect is the suit.

Things get patchier still for searches made using crowded images. A search for living room decor ideas made using an image will bring up some relevant results, but will not always hone in on specific items.

As with all machine learning technologies, this product will continue to improve and for now, Bing is a step ahead of Google in this aspect. Nonetheless, Microsoft lacks the user base and the mobile hardware to launch a real assault on the visual search market in the long run.

Visual search thrives on data; in this regard, both Google and Pinterest have stolen a march on Bing.

Bing visual search: The key facts

• Originally launched in 2009, but removed in 2012 due to lack of uptake
• Relaunched in July 2017, underpinned by AI to identify and analyze objects
• Advertisers can use Bing visual search to place shoppable images
• The technology is in its infancy, but the object recognition is quite accurate
• Desktop only for now, but mobile will follow soon

So, who has the best visual search engine?

For now, Pinterest. With billions of data points and some seasoned image search professionals driving the technology, it provides the smoothest and most accurate experience. It also does something unique by grasping the stylistic features of objects, rather than just their shape or color. As such, it alters the language at our disposal and extends the limits of what is possible in search marketing.

Bing has made massive strides in this arena of late, but it lacks the killer application that would make it stand out enough to draw searchers from Google. Bing visual search is accurate and functional, but does not create connections to related items in the way that Pinterest can.

The launch of Google Lens will surely shake up this market altogether, too. If Google can nail down automated object recognition (which it undoubtedly will), Google Lens could be the product that links traditional search to augmented reality. The resources and the product suite at Google’s disposal make it the likely winner in the long run.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/09/28/pinterest-google-or-bing-who-has-the-best-visual-search-engine/