Search is no longer limited to typing words into a box.
People can now point their phone at a product, upload an image, circle something on their screen, or right-click an image in Chrome and ask Google to find related information.
Until recently, website owners had limited visibility into how that kind of search was contributing to their organic performance.
That has now changed.
On September 24, 2026, Google introduced web multimodal search performance reporting in Google Search Console, giving site owners a new way to measure traffic and visibility generated from searches that begin with images. Google for Developers
For SEO professionals and website owners, this is an important development because it gives us a clearer view of how people are discovering websites beyond traditional text-based search.
What is multimodal search?
Multimodal search is a search experience that uses more than one type of input.
Instead of entering only text, a user might search using an image, a camera, or an image combined with additional information.
Google says its new Web: multimodal reporting includes searches originating from:
- Google Lens
- Circle to Search on Android
- images uploaded directly to Google Search
- Chrome’s image search functionality
Google has started rolling this reporting out globally, and sites receiving qualifying traffic can see the data inside their Search Console performance reports. Google for Developers
A simple example would be someone seeing a pair of shoes they like, taking a photo of them, and using Google Lens to search for similar products.
They may never type:
“black leather running shoes”
Instead, the image itself becomes part of the query.
If your website appears in that search and the person clicks through, Search Console can now provide visibility into that activity.
Where can you find multimodal search data?
The new data appears under the Search type filter in Google Search Console.
To check it:
- Open Google Search Console
- Go to Performance
- Open Search results
- Select the Search type filter
- Choose Web: multimodal
Google now separates web search into different types, including Web: text-based and Web: multimodal. Traditional Google Images traffic remains a separate Image search type. Google Help
That distinction matters.
Multimodal search is not the same as Google Image Search
It is easy to assume that multimodal search and image search are the same thing, but they represent different user behaviours.
Google Image Search generally means a user is browsing or searching within Google Images.
Web: multimodal search, on the other hand, covers situations where an image is used as part of the search itself.
For example:
| Search type | Example |
| Web: text-based | User types “best office chair for back pain” |
| Web: multimodal | User takes a photo of a chair and searches with Google Lens |
| Image | User searches for chairs through Google Images |
This separation gives marketers a better understanding of how the search began, not just where a click came from. Google Help
What can you learn from the new report?
The new reporting gives website owners another way to analyze how their pages are being discovered.
You can use Search Console dimensions such as pages, countries, devices, and dates to study performance patterns. Google’s performance reports are designed to help site owners understand which pages are receiving visibility and how that visibility changes over time. Google Help
This creates several useful questions for marketers:
- Which pages are appearing most often in multimodal searches?
- Are product pages receiving more visual-search visibility than blog content?
- Is multimodal activity mostly coming from mobile devices?
- Is the traffic increasing over time?
- Which countries are producing the strongest visual-search activity?
For ecommerce websites in particular, this data could become valuable because many purchase journeys begin visually.
There is one major limitation
The new reporting does not show the exact multimodal query.
Google explains that because multimodal searches primarily use images rather than text, specific text-query information is unavailable for this traffic. As a result, the normal Queries dimension is not available when Web: multimodal is selected. Google Help
That means you may be able to see:
- which page received impressions
- whether users clicked
- the device used
- the country
- performance trends
But you will not necessarily know exactly what image the person searched with or what they were visually trying to identify.
That makes page-level analysis especially important.
If one product page suddenly begins receiving significant multimodal impressions, that may tell you more than a keyword report could.
Why this matters for ecommerce
Ecommerce may be one of the biggest beneficiaries of visual search.
Consider how people discover products in real life.
Someone could see:
- a jacket on another person
- a piece of furniture in a hotel
- a watch in a photo
- a lamp in a restaurant
- a pair of shoes on social media
They may not know the brand.
They may not know the product name.
They may not even know what words to use to describe it.
With visual search, they do not need to.
They can simply show Google the image.
For retailers, that changes part of the discovery journey.
A customer can potentially find a product before they know what it is called.
The new Search Console reporting gives businesses a better opportunity to understand whether their products are benefiting from that behaviour.
Does this mean keywords are becoming irrelevant?
No.
Keywords still matter because people continue to search with text, and Google still needs to understand the topic, relevance, and intent of a page.
What is changing is the number of ways a user can express intent.
Search intent may now begin with:
- words
- an image
- a camera
- an image combined with text
So the better conclusion is not:
SEO is no longer about keywords.
It is:
SEO now has to account for more ways of discovering and understanding content.
That is an important difference.
How should website owners prepare for multimodal search?
Google’s new report does not mean site owners need to abandon their existing SEO strategy.
In fact, the fundamentals become even more important.
1. Use relevant, high-quality images
Your images should clearly represent the subject, product, service, or concept on the page.
A blurry or irrelevant image provides less useful context for both users and search systems.
For ecommerce sites, product images should show items clearly and, where useful, from multiple angles.
2. Write meaningful alt text
Alternative text helps describe images when they cannot be seen and improves accessibility.
It can also provide additional context about what an image represents.
Avoid stuffing keywords into alt text.
Instead, describe the image naturally and accurately.
For example:
Weak:
shoe image
Better:
Black leather men’s running shoe with white sole
The description should exist because it helps explain the image, not because you are trying to force a ranking signal.
3. Keep the surrounding page content relevant
An image does not exist in isolation.
Search engines can use the broader page context to understand what a page is about.
That means your:
- headings
- page copy
- titles
- product descriptions
- internal links
should clearly support the subject represented by the image.
4. Make sure important pages are indexable
A great product image will not help much if the page containing it is unintentionally blocked from search.
Website owners should continue checking:
- robots directives
- canonical URLs
- indexing status
- redirects
- crawlability
Google’s URL Inspection tool can help confirm how Google sees individual pages and troubleshoot indexing issues. Google Help
5. Use structured data where appropriate
For products, articles, recipes, videos, and other supported content types, structured data can give search engines additional context about the page.
It should not be treated as a guarantee of visibility, but it can help search engines understand the content more precisely.
6. Keep your website technically healthy
Visual search does not replace technical SEO.
Broken pages, incorrect redirects, duplicate metadata, indexing mistakes, slow-loading content, and poor internal linking can still weaken the overall search experience.
The new multimodal report gives us another source of performance data, but the underlying website still has to be maintained properly.
What should WordPress website owners do now?
The first step is simple:
Open Search Console and check whether Web: multimodal appears under Search type.
If you already have data, look at which pages are receiving impressions and clicks.
Then ask:
- Why might these particular pages be discoverable visually?
- Are the images on those pages well optimized?
- Do those pages have useful titles and descriptions?
- Are the pages correctly indexed and canonicalized?
- Are there related pages that could also benefit from stronger visual content?
If you do not see any multimodal data yet, that does not necessarily indicate a problem.
Google says the reporting is rolling out globally, and sites will begin seeing the metrics when they receive traffic from qualifying multimodal searches. Google for Developers
Where SEO Repair Kit fits in
The new Search Console data is useful because it shows how people are finding your website.
But visibility data is only part of the job.
Website owners still need to maintain the technical SEO foundations of the pages being discovered.
For WordPress sites, that includes managing areas such as:
- metadata
- canonical URLs
- indexing directives
- broken links
- redirects
- 404 errors
- schema
- ongoing SEO health monitoring
This is where tools such as SEO Repair Kit can complement Search Console.
Search Console can show you how your site is performing in Google. SEO Repair Kit helps you monitor and manage many of the website-level issues that can affect that performance directly from WordPress.
As search becomes more visual and more complex, maintaining a technically healthy website becomes increasingly important.
Final thoughts
Google’s multimodal Search Console reporting is not simply another dashboard filter.
It reflects a broader change in how people search.
A user may no longer begin their journey by thinking:
“What keyword should I type?”
They may simply point their camera at something and ask Google to find it.
For website owners, the opportunity is not to abandon traditional SEO.
It is to expand the way we think about discovery.
Keywords still matter. Technical SEO still matters. Content still matters.
But images are increasingly becoming part of the search query itself.
And now, for the first time, Google is giving website owners a clearer way to measure that behaviour.