Search Console now shows how many people find your site by searching with a photo

Google has added a multimodal search filter to Search Console. It counts visits from Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads and Chrome's Search this image.

Google announced on 24 September that Search Console now reports on multimodal search, which covers people searching with an image instead of typing words. It is rolling out worldwide.

The new data includes searches made with Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and the Search this image option when you right-click a picture in Chrome. You find it through a new multimodal search type filter in the Performance report for Search results, and in the report for Google's generative AI features. You can export the numbers like any other Search Console data. You will only see figures if your site is actually getting traffic from these searches.

This matters most for businesses that sell physical things. Someone who points their phone at a pair of shoes, a light fitting or a part they need to replace may land on your product page without ever typing your brand name. Until now that traffic was mixed in with everything else, so you could not tell whether your product photos were bringing in customers.

Look at the report after a few weeks of data has built up, and check which pages show up. If the pages getting image-search visits have thin descriptions or missing prices, fix those first, because the visitor already knows what they want. Clear, original product photos and accurate alt text on those images help Google match them to what people photograph.

If you have never opened Search Console, this is a good reason to set it up. It is free, and it shows you how people reach your site from Google search.