Search Console Now Reports Lens and Circle to Search Traffic

Search Console can now show how much of your traffic comes from people searching with a picture instead of words. Google announced a new multimodal search type on September 24, 2026, in a Search Central blog post by Harsh Kharbanda (Google Lens) and Moshe Samet (Search Console). It is rolling out globally.

What is covered

The filter counts searches that start with an image. Google names four sources:

Entry point	Where it happens
Google Lens	Pointing a phone camera at something, or a photo
Circle to Search	Circling part of the screen on Android
Image uploads	Uploading an image to Google Search directly
Chrome “Search this image”	Right-clicking an image in the desktop browser

The new search type sits in two places: the regular Performance report for Search results, and the report for Generative AI features that Search Console launched in June (we covered that one in Search Console’s AI performance reports). Like every other Performance view, it exports.

Why it matters

Until now, visual searches were folded into totals you could not separate. That made it impossible to tell whether a product photo, a diagram or an infographic was pulling its weight. It also lands while Google keeps pushing images and generated answers closer together: AI Overviews now generate images of their own, and the AI surfaces are no longer a side channel, with AI Mode passing a billion monthly users in June. Having a multimodal slice inside the Generative AI features report is the first way to see where image-led searches and AI answers overlap on your own site.

What it means for you

Open the Performance report, switch the search type to multimodal, and compare the top pages against your normal web results. Pages that show up here and nowhere else are being found through their images, which usually means the image is doing more work than the text around it. Give those pages a descriptive file name, real alt text, and a title that still makes sense to someone who arrived with a photo rather than a query. The title tag and meta tags for SEO guides cover the fields that still decide what the result looks like.

If the report is empty, that is a finding too: your images are decorative as far as Google is concerned.

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[ FAQ ]

Where is the multimodal filter in Search Console?

In the Performance report for Search results and in the report for Generative AI features, as a new search type option alongside web, image, video and news. Google says it is rolling out globally from September 24, 2026, so some properties will see it later than others.

What counts as a multimodal search?

A search that starts with an image rather than typed text. Google lists four entry points: Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and the right-click Search this image option in Chrome.

Why is my multimodal report empty?

Google says the metrics only appear if the site is actually receiving traffic from these queries. A site with few images, or images that are purely decorative, may see little or nothing, which is itself useful information.