Twitter has rolled out a new image search function on its site that previews photos at the top of search queries. The new function was put on the site late last week.

The image search has been in the works for a long time brings the micro-blogging site one step closer to a head-to-head battle with Instagram.

Twitter’s Tian Wang announced the improvement on the Twitter blog, saying that the move was made to “highlight the photos, videos and news shared on Twitter, all wrapped up in more social context.”

The image search is still being fully implemented. It currently only displays results for selected terms. The use of hashtags in search terms can determine whether the search function works or not. One example is that “dogs” yields no results, but “#dogs” does (the same goes for cats versus #cats).

Twitter has rolled out several improvements to help them wage a war against Facebook’s Instagram. Those improvements include the addition of highlighted video news, image previews on articles and stories, the brand new photo search, and possibly adding filters to images.

Despite the improvements, Twitter has not yet break the stranglehold Instagram has on social photography. Instagram has also made it difficult to tag Twitter profiles in Instagram posts in an attempt at removing the micro-blogging site from the social photography one.

Twitter’s latest move, in adding a new image search, will likely help them, at least a little bit, in their fight to topple Instagram’s social photography reign.

[Image from Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com]