Search Console Just Started Counting Lens Traffic. Check This Before You Credit Your Last Refresh.
Search Console Just Started Counting Lens Traffic. Check This Before You Credit Your Last Refresh.
On September 24, Google split the "Web" search type in Search Console into two options: Text-based and Multimodal. The Multimodal bucket counts searches where someone used an image instead of typed words. That covers Google Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads, and Chrome's "Search this image" option.
John Mueller confirmed this data wasn't in the counts before. It's new.
If you refreshed a batch of pages in the last few weeks, some of the lift you're about to see may have nothing to do with your work.
What the Multimodal Filter Actually Shows
Open the Performance report, click the Search type filter, and look under Web. You'll now see Text-based and Multimodal as separate choices.
Pick Multimodal and you get clicks and impressions for pages that showed up when someone searched with a photo, a screenshot, or a circled part of their screen. You still get page-level data.
What you don't get is the query column. Google's explanation is simple: these searches start from an image, so there's no text query to report.
The same split is rolling out to the generative AI report, which still only shows impressions.
Why This Can Mess Up Your Refresh Reporting
New data looks exactly like growth
Here's the trap we keep seeing with every Search Console change. A new data source lands, the totals go up, and someone screenshots the chart as proof that last month's refreshes worked.
If Multimodal traffic is being added to your Web totals, a page with a lot of product photos or diagrams could jump without a single edit. Google's own announcement didn't say whether older data was backfilled, so a clean before-and-after comparison is harder than usual right now.
Three things landed the same week
The multimodal data started September 24. Google's September 2026 spam update also started rolling out September 24. Tools tracked ranking volatility on September 23 and 24.
That's three separate reasons your numbers could move in one window. Attributing any change to a refresh you shipped that week is a guess.
What we do instead
Set the Search type to Text-based when you measure a refresh. That keeps your comparison closer to the data you had before September 24.
Then look at Multimodal on its own. Treat it as a new channel with its own baseline, starting now.
How to Use Multimodal Data to Pick Your Next Refresh
Back in 2024, Google said Lens was handling nearly 20 billion visual searches a month, and until last week you couldn't see which of your pages were catching any of it.
Sort by pages, not queries
Since there's no query data, go straight to the Pages tab with Multimodal selected. Sort by impressions.
The pages at the top are the ones Google already connects to images people are photographing or screenshotting. Those are your visual search pages, whether you planned them that way or not.
Look for high impressions and low clicks
A page with plenty of multimodal impressions and almost no clicks is getting seen and skipped. On the text side, we'd fix that with a better title. On the visual side, the fix usually starts with the image itself.
Check whether the page has original photos or stock images Google has seen a thousand times. Check whether the image that matches the search is buried below the fold. Check the alt text and the caption, because those are often the only words tying the image to what the page is about.
Start the refresh with the images
Most refresh checklists treat images as an afterthought. Swap the hero, compress the file, move on.
Multimodal traffic flips that order. For a page getting found through Lens, a clear, original photo of the exact product, part, plant, or error screen is doing more work than the intro paragraph.
We'd prioritize these fixes on multimodal pages:
- Replace generic stock images with original photos that show the real thing
- Put the most matchable image near the top of the page
- Write alt text that describes what's in the image, in plain language
- Add a caption when the image needs context to make sense
- Make sure the text around the image answers the question a person would have after photographing it
Don't ignore pages with zero multimodal traffic
If a product page or how-to guide has no multimodal impressions at all, that's a signal too. It may mean the images aren't distinct enough for Google to match to anything.
Put those pages on the list for your next refresh cycle.
FAQ
What counts as a multimodal search in Search Console? Any search that starts with an image. That includes Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and the "Search this image" option in Chrome. Typed searches stay in the Text-based bucket.
Why can't I see queries for multimodal traffic? Because the search starts with a picture, there's usually no text query to show. Google removes the query dimension when the Multimodal filter is selected, so you work from the Pages view instead.
Did my traffic go up because of the multimodal filter? Possibly. Mueller confirmed the data is new to Search Console, so image-driven visits may be counted where they weren't before. Compare Text-based traffic only if you want a cleaner read on a recent refresh.
Which sites should care most about this? Ecommerce, recipes, home improvement, plants and gardening, fashion, and anything with how-to or troubleshooting content. If people point their phone at the thing your page is about, you likely have multimodal traffic.
Know Which Changes Actually Moved the Needle
Every new Search Console report makes attribution a little harder. SEORefresher tracks which pages are gaining or losing visibility over time, so you can separate a real refresh win from a reporting change. See which of your pages need attention at seorefresher.com.