Google Is Tracking Your Camera Now: Multimodal Search in Search Console

People can now find your website by pointing a camera at a product, not typing a word into Google. That isn't new by itself — Google Lens has existed for years. What's new is that Google Search Console now reports on it, as its own, filterable search type. Until that reporting existed, this traffic was invisible in your own data.

What "multimodal search" means here

Multimodal search covers queries that combine more than one input — a photo plus typed or spoken text, for example. Someone points their camera at a pair of shoes, adds the word "sale," and Google returns results using both the image and the text together. Search Console now lets you filter the Performance report by search type to see this traffic specifically, alongside the familiar Web, Image and Video types.

Where to find it in your account

• Open Search Console for your property.
• Go to the Performance report.
• Open the Search type filter (it sits alongside Date and other filters).
• Look for the multimodal option. If your account has qualifying traffic, it will appear as a selectable type with its own clicks, impressions, CTR and position data.

If you don't see it, it most likely means your site hasn't had measurable multimodal traffic yet, not that the feature is missing from your account.

Who should actually check this

• Clothing, footwear and accessories — visual search is a natural fit for anything people recognize by appearance.
• Food and packaged products — a photo of a dish, label or package is often faster than describing it in words.
• Furniture and home decor — people photograph a piece they like and search for where to buy something similar.
• Any product-image-heavy catalog — the common thread is a visual product that's easier to show than to describe.

If your business is service-based with little visual product content, this report may simply show nothing yet — that's expected, not a problem to fix.

What to actually do with it

1. Filter your Performance report by the multimodal search type and note the current numbers, even if they're small. This is your baseline.
2. Check which pages receive this traffic. It's usually product pages with clear, well-lit images.
3. Make sure those pages have genuinely good product images: multiple angles, clean backgrounds, accurate colors. Visual search depends on your images being recognizable.
4. Re-check the report monthly. This is a new and growing surface, not a one-time check.

Read this with healthy skepticism

• A new report category isn't a new ranking signal. It's visibility into traffic that existed before but wasn't broken out separately.
• Small numbers are normal at first. This is an emerging search type, not yet a major traffic source for most sites.
• Don't rebuild your SEO strategy around one report. Treat it as one more data point alongside Web, Image and Video performance.