Mozcast posted on Twitter that Google seems to have lowered the image search box that shows up for many search queries in the web results. Mozcast wrote, “spot-checking the image drop and it seems to be legitimate (for now). Almost half of SERPs with image vertical lost those results.”

Here is the Mozcast features chart:

It shows almost a 50% drop. So I checked out RankRanger and it shows also a 50% drop as well!

It seems Google has pushed down the image box more somewhere in the middle or below the organic results or removed them completely.

It is unclear if this is a Google bug or a feature.

Here is a screen shot of a query for [flowers] this morning:

Forum discussion at Twitter.