If finding the perfect pair of shoes to go with that new outfit seems impossible, there may be a solution to online shoppers' woes.

Released on Nov. 8, Riya Inc.'s Like.com provides a haven for picky shoppers to search for products using what Riya calls Likeness Technology, said Beth Kirsch, marketing director for Riya.

According to the Web site, Likeness Technology describes an image's contents and allows shoppers to accurately search for similar items to fit their needs.

"What makes Riya's technology different is we are able to look inside a picture and see visual imprints of the picture and compare it to other pictures," Kirsch said.

The search engine is able to search within an image by translating the picture into math via a series of algorithms to compare the images, she said.

Currently the visual search engine includes aesthetic products such as jewelry, shoes and handbags. Shoppers can search for a product by category and then indicate parts of the product they like by dragging a box over the admired part of the item with their cursor. Also, once shoppers search within a category, they can indicate if they particularly like the color, shape or pattern on a scale by dragging a marker from left (less liked) to right (more liked).

Once shoppers have found a product they like, they can click a link that leads them to the site from which they can purchase it. More than 200 retailers have partnered with Riya to include more than 1 million products in the database on Like.com, Kirsch said.

Although Like.com only features accessory products, Riya plans on adding clothing, home and garden products and furniture to Like.com, because of their visual nature, Kirsch said.

"Our long-term goal is to become a full-blown visual search engine, but we needed to start somewhere," Kirsch said.

Like.com is currently targeted at women 20 to 30 years old, Kirsch said, but Riya perceives everyone as a potential customer.

"The response has been overwhelmingly positive because shopping online for products is hard," Kirsch said. "We've been able to merge consumer needs with technology because the technology wasn't available [before]."

Arvind Rangaswamy, Penn State professor of marketing, said he believes Like.com won't become the next big thing in Internet searching. He said he thinks the site will be taken under the wings of a pre-existing company.

"It won't be the next Google or anything," Rangaswamy said.

From a consumer point of view, Rangaswamy said, he thinks the most convenient way for people to do visual searches for products would be to scan a picture of a desired item and then let the search engine find that exact product. He said the likeness search on Like.com only finds items that are similar to the products that shoppers want rather than finding the exact desired item.

"Many times when people search, it's like they're searching for a needle in a haystack," Rangaswamy said. "But with [Like.com] you know what you're looking for, but you're looking for the haystack, not the needle. You look for a design you like and look for things quite similar [but not exact]."

Although Riya's Likeness Technology is an advance from text searching, it may not be the most cutting-edge technology, said John Yen, professor-in-charge of information sciences and technology (IST) at Penn State.

As the task of image retrieval and visual searching becomes more complex, Yen said, the technology must also advance. The technology used to find more accurate results for visual searches will have to use technology that mimics human perception, like the processes of the human eye, Yen said.

"I think having this kind of company opening this space in online shopping in cyberspace just reinforces the real-world relevance in additional research in this area to enhance our capability to find and retrieve images," Yen said.