Mordy Oberstein of RankRanger has shared a report stating that Google mobile search results have witnessed a phenomenal increase in the number of thumbnails. According to the data shared by RankRanger, there was a surge of 183% on July 13, 2018, from 15.7 percent of all first-page mobile search results having image thumbnails to 44.5%. This trend has been prevalent for a few days. Here is a chart which displays the sudden boost in mobile thumbnails:-
The increase in this metric last happened during September 2016, when mobile image thumbnails which were under 1 percent of all mobile page one search results and leaped to more than 10 percent. Now, as per the query sets tracked by RankRanger, nearly 45 percent of mobile search results are displaying image thumbnails.
Over the last few years, Google tested image thumbnails in mobile-based search results. At present, Google prefers displaying them. So how is it going to impact SEOs? You will have to make sure that your images are marked on your page and are precisely described in your HTML. This will boost their chances of being displayed in by Google in mobile search results. Search results having image thumbnails have a higher click-through rate as compared to those which do not contain any type of images.
