The revamped search engine, which kicked off August 2, helps customers navigate Alamy's rapidly growing inventory with greater speed and stronger relevancy. Having doubled in size since November 2006, Alamy's collection currently represents over 8 million images. CEO James West thinks this number will grow to 10 million by year's end.

Developed by in-house engineers, the search engine launched without much fanfare; the company believes it will be some time before the changes are significant. Alamy expects the search results to become noticeably different when contributors begin using its new annotation system, scheduled to launch during the third quarter.

This future tool allows Alamy contributors to keyword images online. The company's goal is to give contributors greater control over how their images are indexed by the system. For those apprehensive about changes to the keywording schema, West says that every effort has been made to ensure that current contributors are not disadvantaged. Images already in the system will not be affected by the launch of this feature, but contributors can choose to re-keyword.

Additional features planned by the company include customer activity reporting tools for contributing photographers and agencies. AlamyRank will be updated, and the new AlamyMeasure will allow contributors to see how often any image is viewed and clicked.

According to West, these improvements and additions are Alamy's response to the overall growth of the online image market. "Picture buyers will spend longer looking for the images they need, and image producers will spend more time describing their pictures in order to stand out from the crowd," he says. "Alamy is leading this trend."