I was listening to a podcast the other day and the guest mentioned a clever hack for finding cheaper prices on AirBnB listings. Instead of booking through AirBnB, you save a couple of the images to your phone or computer and do a reverse image search to find the other sites where the property owner is listing the same rental property. The rationale being that other sites charge lower fees, so the rental might be cheaper. This same approach works for finding duplicates of virtually any image online.
Searching with an image on Google
Google makes it super easy to perform a reverse image search.
If you are using a computer, open Google.com in your favorite browser and drag-and-drop the image you want to search for. Alternatively you can click on the camera icon to the right of the microphone (circled in yellow in the screenshot below).
Once Google comes back with results, you can refine them to show either visual matches or exact matches depending on how specific you want to be in your reverse image search.
In my example of searching for an AirBnB, I would use the exact match since rental property owners tend to upload the same images to every site they use to promote their properties. Then in the search results, I would click through to each site and look for the best price.
Searching from your phone
The same steps above will work from your phone too. You can open the browser on your phone, type in Google.com, and then add an image from your camera roll. If you prefer using an app, the Google app will also allow you to perform the same search.
Other uses for reverse image search
There are other use cases for using reverse image search like:
- Identifying places where someone used your image to create a fake profile.
- Seeing if someone used your photography without your permission
- Identifying a plant, animal, or bird in a photo
