Customers do not only type keywords to find you. They point a phone camera at a product, menu or shopfront, upload a photo to Google Search, or right-click in Chrome and choose Search this image. On 24 September 2026 Google announced that Search Console can now show how your site performs in these image-led searches—useful for Hong Kong SMEs that rely on product photos, before-and-after work, menus and portfolios.
What Google announced
In a Google Search Central blog post by Harsh Kharbanda (Product Manager Lead, Google Lens) and Moshe Samet (Product Manager Lead, Search Console), Google introduced web multimodal Search performance reporting in Search Console—available in the Performance on Search results report and in the Generative AI features report.
The data covers searches with images: Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and Chrome’s right-click Search this image. Use the new multimodal search type filter in those performance reports. Export is available if you want to analyse the data elsewhere. The rollout started globally on that day; metrics appear when your site already receives traffic from these queries. Feedback can go through Submit feedback in Search Console or the Google Search Central Community.
How to open the multimodal filter
- Sign in to Google Search Console and select the property you want to review.
- Open Performance, then the Search results report; you can also check the Generative AI features report.
- In the search type filter, choose the new multimodal option.
- Break the data down by date, page, country or device as needed, and use Export when you want a download.
If you do not see numbers yet, that can simply mean your site is not yet getting traffic from multimodal queries—the feature may still be available, with empty metrics until those visits arrive.
What the numbers mean for a small company site
This filter is not a secret ranking score. It helps you see how often people reach you after searching with an image. Typical SME use cases include product catalogue photos, shopfronts and renovation before/after shots, menu and dish photos, and service portfolios (salons, fitting-out, car detailing, venue hire).
- Clicks and impressions rising: your images may be showing up more often in Lens or image-led search—check that the matching product or portfolio pages have clear copy and contact paths.
- High impressions, low clicks on some pages: the title, snippet or landing page may not answer what someone wants after seeing the image (price range, service area, hours, how to book).
- Older photo pages suddenly getting traffic: refresh alt text, filenames and nearby descriptions so the landing page is complete.
- No data at all: confirm the site has clear, indexable images, then re-check later—Google says metrics appear when the site already receives this traffic.
Short checklist: make website images more discoverable
Google’s Image SEO Best Practices spell out the technical basics. Here is a compact version for SME sites—follow the official guidance; do not stuff keywords.
- Embed images with real HTML img elements and a src attribute; do not rely on CSS background images for important content—Google does not index CSS images.
- Use descriptive filenames, titles and alt text (for example black-leather-sofa-living-room.jpg), not image1.jpg; avoid keyword stuffing in alt attributes.
- Supported formats include BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG and AVIF; balance high quality with fast loading.
- For responsive images, use srcset with a src fallback; submit an image sitemap when it helps discovery.
- Signal a preferred image with schema.org primaryImageOfPage or image, or og:image—pick a relevant, representative image, not a generic logo, and avoid extreme aspect ratios.
- Place images near related text; if the same image is reused across pages, keep a consistent URL so Google can cache and reuse it.
Three steps you can take this week
- Open the multimodal filter in Search Console and check the last 28 days for impressions or clicks; note the strongest pages if any data appears.
- Spot-check those pages’ product or portfolio photos: filenames, alt text, nearby copy, and enquiry or contact paths.
- Fix your top 5–10 business images against the checklist above, then compare Export data again after a couple of weeks.
Image-led search does not replace clear writing and trustworthy information, but for businesses where customers decide by looking first, Search Console finally lets you track that path separately. If you also want a quick pass over basic SEO and technical setup, Webetter’s free website check can be a starting point alongside the official reports.