Google’s new multimodal filter in Search Console is easy to underestimate. It is not another vanity split in a familiar report. It is a sign that visual search is becoming measurable enough for SEO teams to operationalize, but still opaque enough that old keyword habits will not work.
Google announced on September 24 that Search Console is adding web multimodal search performance reporting in the Search results report and in reporting for generative AI features. The data covers searches where an image is part of the query, including Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search and Chrome’s right-click image search. Search Engine Journal notes the practical catch: this traffic does not provide normal query data, so teams are left with page-level evidence.
Why this matters
For ecommerce, publishers, local businesses and visual categories, a customer may now start with a photo, screenshot or object rather than a typed phrase. The page that earns the click might be a product page, recipe, category, guide, location page or image-rich article. If the SEO team looks only at text queries, this demand can stay invisible.
The business implication is simple: visual assets and page context become acquisition infrastructure. Product photos, alt text, surrounding copy, structured data, country targeting and mobile usability all influence whether the page is a good answer when the query begins with an image.
A page-level diagnostic
Start by opening the multimodal filter when data appears. Export the pages, not just the totals. Sort by clicks and impressions, then segment by country and device. Do not expect a full keyword list. Instead, ask what visual job each landing page appears to be doing.
For every high-impression page, inspect the visible image set. Are product angles, materials, packaging, variants and use cases clear? Does the page have enough text to explain what the image shows? Does structured data match the page type? Is the image file discoverable, fast and not hidden behind unnecessary interaction?
For low-click, high-impression pages, compare the snippet, image, title and page intent. A visual searcher may need confirmation faster than a text searcher. If the image says one thing and the page title says another, the click can be lost even when Google surfaces the page.
What not to do
Do not turn multimodal reporting into another ranking panic. A small dataset at rollout does not prove that visual search is failing. Do not invent missing query intent from one page. And do not rewrite every page around Lens or Circle to Search. The strongest response is a focused audit of pages where image-led discovery is plausible.
The takeaway
Search Console’s multimodal filter gives SEOs a new measurement surface, not a complete explanation. The useful habit is page-first diagnosis: which pages appear for image-led searches, what visual evidence they provide, where users come from, and which page elements make the next click obvious. The teams that build this routine now will understand visual demand before it becomes another unexplained line in traffic reports.
Source References
- Google Search Central: web multimodal Search performance reporting
- Search Engine Journal: Google Search Console Adds Multimodal Filter
- Search Console Help: Performance report filtering
