TinEye, a reverse image search website, is proving useful with its unique ability to discover the original whereabouts of any image. Many people start to realize just what a valuable resource TinEye can be.

Users simply take the URL of an image or take an image itself and submit it to TinEye.  The website will compare the image to millions of others until it finds matches. Then, users can see where it was first uploaded, any modified versions of that particular image, and can compare the photos.

Even better, as an app on an iPhone or an iPod touch, users can take a picture of the cover of a book and a couple of other interesting things, upload that onto TinEye, and the reverse search engine can even take users to Amazon.com, where they can preview, and of course, buy the book.

By downloading its Firefox plugin, any TinEye user can simply right click an image and get it evaluated by TinEye, without having to plug in the URL or anything.

The makers of TinEye stated, “TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is even free to use for non-commercial searching.”

By continuing to expand and add images, this search engine is quickly proving its worth, especially during moments of crisis and campaigning when image validity is important.