Google Search Console Adds Multimodal Search Filter

Free Instant SEO Audit

Sneaker visualised through a Google multimodal search filter on a phone

By NewSunSEO September 25, 2026

Google Search Console now lets site owners see how much of their traffic comes from image-based searches, with a new Multimodal filter in the Performance report that separates image-triggered visits from text-based web clicks.

The new filter, called Web: multimodal, tracks searches started with an image, photo, or screenshot rather than typed text. It is now live alongside the original Web filter, which has been renamed Web: Text-based to reflect the split. The rollout is global, and site owners with image-heavy content will see the data first.

What the Multimodal Filter Shows

The multimodal filter captures traffic from four image-driven entry points into Google Search:

Google Lens
Circle to Search on Android
Image uploads to Google Search
The Chrome right-click “Search this image” option

Until now, clicks and impressions from these surfaces were not reported at all in the Performance report, according to a clarification posted on Bluesky. The data was not folded into the text-based web totals, so the new filter represents genuinely net-new reporting rather than a reshuffling of existing numbers.

How to Find the New Filter

Open the Performance report in Search Console, click the Search type filter at the top of the page, and look under the Web category. Two options now appear: Web: Text-based and Web: multimodal. Select the multimodal option to see impressions, clicks, and average position for pages surfaced through image-based queries.

One important limitation: because most multimodal searches begin with an image rather than text, the Queries dimension is not available when the multimodal search type is selected. Site owners can see which pages were triggered and how often, but not the specific queries behind them.

Why This Matters for Site Owners

Image-heavy sites stand to gain the most immediate insight. E-commerce product pages, travel photography, recipe blogs with hero images, and any publisher relying on visual discovery through Google Lens now have a way to measure that traffic directly. Before this update, those impressions were invisible inside Search Console, making it difficult to justify investments in image SEO or to track the impact of visual search improvements.

For sites that do not deliberately optimize for visual discovery, the filter still provides a baseline. If multimodal impressions appear and grow, that signals an audience finding content through Lens or Circle to Search that the owner was not aware of.

How the Data Is Tracked

Google updated its help documentation to describe the filter. The Performance report overview defines Web: multimodal as web search results where an image was used as part of the search. The dimensions and data groupings page notes that because multimodal searches mostly use images rather than text, specific text query data is not available for this traffic, which is why the Queries dimension is hidden when the filter is active.

Webmasters can export the data using the Export button at the top of the report to analyze it in external tools.

What’s Still Missing

The Performance report still does not include click or query data for generative AI results, a gap that remains on many publishers’ wish lists. The new multimodal reporting covers image-triggered search but does not extend to AI Overview or generative surfaces.

Several properties also showed corresponding drops in clicks and impressions around September 10, which aligns with the new data being separated out. The team confirmed these multimodal counts were not previously included in the Web totals, so historical comparisons will need to account for the new reporting line.

Checking Your Own Site

To see whether the filter is available, open the Performance report, click the Search type selector, and check for the multimodal option under Web. Google is rolling the feature out globally, so availability may vary in the first days. SEOScanPRO’s AI visibility tracking can complement this by showing whether a site’s pages are being cited by AI engines in addition to appearing in image-driven search results.

FAQ

What is the new Multimodal filter in Google Search Console?

The Multimodal filter in the Search Console Performance report tracks web search results triggered by an image, photo, or screenshot. It separates image-driven traffic from text-based web searches, including traffic from Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and the Chrome “Search this image” feature.

Why is the Queries dimension missing in multimodal search data?

Because multimodal searches mostly use images rather than text, specific text query data is not available for this traffic. The Queries dimension is therefore not available when the multimodal search type is selected, though page-level impressions and clicks still appear.

Was multimodal traffic included in the old Web filter?

No. The data was not previously counted in the Web filter at all, which is why some properties showed drops in clicks and impressions around September 10 once the filter split out multimodal traffic into its own line.

Related coverage

SEOScanPRO

SEOScanPRO’s AI visibility report runs a full technical audit of a site and shows the measured result behind every check. Open the AI visibility report.