Seeing Is Believing Visual search engines make it simple for shoppers to find your products.

Visual recognition and search company Riya has applied its matching technology to a new fashion shopping site called Like.com. The idea is that, when a shopper finds a fashion item he or she likes--a particular handbag or pair of shoes, for example--the search engine finds related products by examining the actual image. To get matches, users can do a keyword search, browse products or even browse items worn by celebrities.

Riya's technology works by studying one image and finding others that match it. E-tailers add their merchandise to Like.com simply by adding item images, or they can work with their affiliate networks to get listed. E-tailers are charged for Like.com's service by the click, but a few merchants use a cost-per-acquisition model.

"Like.com is very new," says Sucharita Mulpuru, a senior analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It's unclear how it will change online shopping, but I am confident that it will be another layer retailers and comparison shopping engines will likely incorporate, if only because it's a really neat technology."