Google Search Console Now Splits Out Image Searches

Someone stands in front of your storefront, or holds your product, or looks at a printed menu taped to a door, and instead of typing your name into Google, they point a phone camera at it. Until four days ago, that visit looked identical in Search Console to someone who typed your business name from their couch. Same report, same "Web" bucket, no way to tell them apart. Google just split them.

The split Search Console just made

Search Console's Performance report has always had a "Search type" filter — Web, Image, Video, News. As of September 24, 2026, the Web option itself splits into two: Text-based and Multimodal. The multimodal side covers any search that began with an image instead of typed words: Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, a photo uploaded straight to Google Search, and Chrome's "Search this image" right-click action all get grouped under the one label. Data is backfilled to September 10, so there's already two weeks of history sitting there the first time you look.

The report itself isn't stripped down. You still get clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position, and you can still slice all of it by page, country, device, and date — the full toolkit, just filtered to searches that started with a picture. The one thing missing is the Queries tab. Google isn't attaching search terms to these visits, presumably because there usually isn't a typed term to attach — someone pointing a camera at your sign wasn't typing anything. You can see which pages a photo-based search reached. You can't see what the photo was of, or what question came with it.

The same split reaches into the newer Generative AI features report too — the one that shows impressions inside AI Overviews and AI Mode — where the multimodal filter now shows impressions specifically for image-started searches that surfaced your site inside a generative answer, not just a standard results page. That's the same territory as why a citation inside an AI answer has become worth tracking on its own terms, separate from a ranked link: a photo-started search that ends in an AI Overview citation is a visit no query-based report was ever going to catch.

Why a small business should care about a filter, not a feature

This isn't a new visibility channel opening up. Google Lens has existed for years; people have been photographing products and storefronts and asking "what is this" for a long time. What changed is that a business now has a way to see it happen, the same way the platform-properties feature let an owner finally see which Instagram post Google was surfacing after years of that traffic being invisible too. Both are reporting, not new reach — Google isn't sending you more visits by shipping either one. It's just stopped hiding a kind of visit that was already happening.

For a local business specifically, image-started search has an obvious shape: someone photographs a menu taped in a window and searches it instead of typing the restaurant's name. Someone snaps a product on a shelf at a competitor and searches to see if you carry it cheaper. Someone screenshots a business card. None of that shows up as a "search" in the way most owners picture one — no keyboard involved — and until this rollout, none of it showed up separately in the one tool built to tell you how people find you. If your product photos, storefront images, or printed materials are the kind of thing someone might point a camera at, this filter is the first honest look at whether that's happening to you.

Finding it in your own account

1. Open Search Console's Performance report — Search results, not the older Search Analytics view if your account still has one.
2. Click the Search type filter near the top of the report and look for the new split: Web now shows Text-based and Multimodal as separate options instead of one combined bucket.
3. Select Web: multimodal and let the report reload. Two weeks of backfilled data (from September 10 forward) should already be sitting there.
4. Check the Pages tab first. Since you can't see queries, pages tell you the closest thing to intent — a product page getting multimodal hits is a different signal than your homepage getting them.
5. Repeat the same filter inside the Generative AI features report if your account has it, to see whether any of that image-started traffic is also surfacing inside an AI Overview or AI Mode answer rather than a standard results page.
6. Check back monthly, not once. A single look tells you whether this is happening at all. A repeated look tells you whether it's growing — which is the only version of this number worth acting on.

Where this report runs out of answers

Expecting it to explain itself. Without a Queries tab, you'll never see what the photo was of or what question came with it. Pages and dates are the only clues you get — treat a spike as a prompt to check what changed on a specific page around that date, not as a mystery you can fully solve from inside the report.

Assuming zero data means nothing's happening. A brand-new filter with two weeks of backfill is going to look thin for almost everyone at first. A flat line in week one is closer to the expected default than a sign your images are invisible to Lens.

Treating this as a ranking lever. Same caution as the social-posts property before it — turning on a filter doesn't make Google show your pages to more cameras. It shows you what's already happening. Nothing about checking this report changes whether it happens more.

Redesigning product photos around a guess. One report with no query data is a thin basis for an image-optimization overhaul. Watch it for a couple of months before deciding your photos, signage, or printed materials need to change because of what it shows.

Checking a report like this once and forgetting it exists is how most small businesses treat every Search Console feature that isn't the main dashboard. Making a habit of the newer ones — this one included — is part of what an ongoing Care engagement does with the reporting Google keeps adding.

FAQ

What is the multimodal search filter in Google Search Console?

A new option inside the Performance report's Search type filter, rolled out globally on September 24, 2026, that separates searches which started with an image — Google Lens, Circle to Search, an uploaded photo, or Chrome's "Search this image" — from ordinary typed searches, which now fall under a separate Text-based option.

What data does the multimodal filter show?

Clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position, broken down by page, country, device, and date — the same fields as the standard Performance report, just filtered to image-started searches. Data is backfilled to September 10, 2026.

What can't I see in the multimodal report?

Queries. Google doesn't attach search terms to image-started searches in this report, so the Queries tab isn't available when the multimodal filter is active — you can see which pages were reached, not what the image or the intent behind it was.

Does this include Google Lens and Circle to Search?

Yes. The multimodal category groups Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, images uploaded directly to Google Search, and Chrome's right-click "Search this image" feature into one combined view — it doesn't separate the four entry points from each other.

Will this feature make my site show up more in image-based searches?

No. Like every other reporting addition Search Console has shipped this year, it shows what's already happening rather than changing it. Turning on the filter has no effect on how often your pages get surfaced to a camera-based search.

Is the multimodal filter available in the Generative AI features report too?

Yes. The same Search type split applies there, showing impressions for image-started searches that surfaced your site inside an AI Overview or AI Mode answer specifically, separate from image searches that led to a standard results page.

My multimodal numbers are near zero. Does that mean something's broken?

Probably not. The filter is brand new with about two weeks of backfilled history at launch, so a thin number in the first month is the expected starting point for most small business sites, not a sign of a problem. Watch it over a couple of months before drawing a conclusion.