Until this week, a visit that began with someone pointing a phone camera at your product was indistinguishable in Search Console from a visit that began with a typed query. On September 24, 2026 Google split them. The Performance report and the Generative AI features report now carry a multimodal search type, covering Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search and Chrome's right-click image search. The data exports like any other filter.
That is the whole announcement, and it is enough to act on. What follows is what the filter counts and does not count, according to Google's post and help documentation, the three questions it can now answer for an ecommerce or image-heavy site, and a baseline routine to start this week, because the useful number is not this week's share but the change in it.
- 01The Web search type is now two: text-based and multimodal.Google's help page defines multimodal as web search results where an image was used as part of the search, and text-based as traditional traffic from typed queries in the standard search bar.
- 02Four entry points are named: Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Search, and Chrome's Search this image.Google's post lists exactly these. It does not publish a traffic share, and neither do we.
- 03The filter is in the interface and the export, not yet in the API.The Search Analytics API reference, read September 25, lists web, image, video, news, discover and googleNews as type values and no multimodal value. Scripted pipelines will see the combined Web figure until that changes.
- 04Start a weekly export now, before you need the trend.The report only shows the filter to properties already receiving this traffic, and Search Console keeps a limited window of history. A baseline you did not export is a baseline you do not have.
01 — The changeWhat the multimodal filter counts, in Google's words #
The Search Central announcement, posted by the product leads for Google Lens and for Search Console, says the new reporting is "designed to give you insights into how your content is surfaced when users search using images (such as with a smartphone camera)". The Performance report help page now lists the search-type filter as web, split into text-based and multimodal, then image, video and news.
- Definition of multimodal"Includes web search results where an image was used as part of the search." Google's help page, read September 25.
- Image in the query
- Named entry pointsLens; Circle to Search on Android; image uploads to Google Search; the Chrome right-click "Search this image" feature.
- Four
- Where it appearsThe Performance report for Search results and the report for Generative AI features, which covers AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions.
- Two reports
- ExportThe post says to click Export to download the data and analyse it elsewhere. The generative AI report's export turns unavailable values into zeros.
- YesInterface and CSV
- RolloutGlobal, starting September 24. Google says you will see the metrics if your site is receiving traffic from these queries.
- From Sep 24
02 — The edgesWhat it does not count, and what Google has not said #
Three boundaries matter when you read the first numbers. The filter is a subdivision of the Web search type, so a click from the Images tab is still an image-type click and is not in the multimodal row. The definition is about how the search was made, not where the result appeared: a Lens search that lands on ordinary web results counts, and one that lands in an AI Overview counts in the generative AI report. And nothing in the announcement or the help page says whether the query dimension is populated for these searches, so do not assume you will see the text Google derived from the image.
One gap is verifiable today. The Search Analytics API reference, read on September 25, lists six values for its type parameter: web, image, video, news, discover and googleNews. There is no multimodal value and no text-based value. A dashboard fed by the API will keep reporting the combined Web number until the reference changes. Our guide to Search Console's platform properties describes the same interface-first pattern for other additions.
What Google has not said, and we will not estimate, is how much traffic this is. The post gives no share, no growth figure and no example. Any number you see quoted this week comes from a third party's own properties, not from Google.
03 — The useThree questions the filter answers for an image-heavy site #
Which pages does the camera find?
Group by page with the multimodal filter on. For a retailer this is the list of product and category pages that a photograph of the object leads to. Compare it with the text-based list: pages that appear only under multimodal are being found by the image and not the words, and their image quality and markup now have a measurable return.
Is visual search a different audience?
Both reports group by country and device. Google lists Circle to Search for Android and Lens is a camera feature, so a large desktop share would be unexpected and worth understanding. Country splits show where camera search has adoption before you invest in it.
Does a visual visit convert like a typed one?
Search Console reports impressions, clicks, CTR and position, not revenue. To answer this you need the click volume by page from the export joined to your own analytics by landing page over the same dates. The join is approximate, which is why the weekly export below keeps both on the same calendar.
The third question is the one a marketing director asks and the one Search Console alone cannot answer. Our post on the AI performance report made the same point about AI Overview impressions: the report tells you where you appeared, and only your own data tells you what it was worth.
04 — The routineHow to baseline now, before the trend exists #
The filter is new, so every property's history under it starts this week. The value of the data is the comparison you can make in three months, and that comparison needs an export you took today. Our retention table lists how long Search Console keeps performance history; the short version is that it is long enough to forget to export and short enough to regret it.
The first export will look small on most sites and will not be a trend. Do not report it as one. Report the pages list, which is useful on day one, and hold the share and growth numbers until there are eight weekly exports to compare. Our SEO practice sets this routine up as part of measurement onboarding.
05 — ConclusionVisual search now has a row, and the row starts empty #
Export the multimodal pages list this week, repeat every Monday, and join it to revenue monthly until the API catches up
Google has given camera search its own line in the report. The only way to know what it is worth to your site is to start counting before you need the answer.