In an official blogpost Google announced introducing badges on image search. With the help of badges, webmasters can help visitors identify the type of content associated with the image by using appropriate structured data on the website pages.
“To help users find exactly what they want, Image Search on mobile devices now includes relevant badges on the thumbnails. Currently we have badges for recipes, videos, products, and animated images (GIFs).”
Google algorithm will automatically badge GIFs, without the need of any markup. However Google doesn’t guarantee that the badges will always show up but adding the recommended structured data field increases the chance of adding a badge to the image search results.
“You can use the Structured Data Testing Tool to verify that your pages are free of errors, and therefore eligible for the new Image Search badges. In addition, the Rich Cards report in Search Console can provide aggregate stats on your markup.”
