SEARCH ENGINE SUPPORTING MIXED IMAGE & TEXT SEARCH INPUT

Searching of images by correlating a search image with a plurality of images hosted in Internet based servers by an image search server. The image search server supports delivery of search result pages to a client device based upon a search string or search image, and contains images from a plurality of Internet based web hosting servers. The image search server delivers a search result page containing images upon receiving a search string and/or search image from the web browser. The selection of images in the search result page is based upon: (i) word match, that is, by selecting images, titles of which correspond to the search string; and (ii) image correlation, that is, by selecting images, image characteristics of which correlates to that of search image. The selection of images in the search result page also occurs on the basis of popularity.