### Traffic from people searching with a photo can finally be counted on its own — Search Console now splits Lens and Circle to Search out of the Google Search total
Until this week, a site owner could not tell a visitor who typed a query from one who pointed a phone camera at a product. Both landed in the same Search performance number. On September 24, 2026, Search Console added a "multimodal search type" filter to two reports, the Performance report and the Generative AI features report. It isolates four ways people search with an image: Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, uploading an image straight to Google Search, and Chrome's right-click "Search this image." Google Search Central announced the rollout as global and immediate. There is no opt-in and no beta list. Sites that already get this traffic will see the new metrics appear on their own, and the data leaves through the same Export button as everything else. The post is signed by one product lead from each side of the change: Harsh Kharbanda for Google Lens, Moshe Samet for Search Console. The reports used to show a blended total. They now carry Google's first first-party split of camera- and image-led discovery.
Sources: Google Search Central Blog: "Announcing web multimodal Search performance reporting in Search Console," Google, September 24, 2026, https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/09/web-multimodal-in-sc
Credibility: HIGH. Official first-party Google Search Central blog post with named authors (Harsh Kharbanda, Product Manager Lead, Google Lens; Moshe Samet, Product Manager Lead, Search Console), and any site owner can check the feature inside their own Search Console account. It is Google documenting its own product change, so no second outlet is needed to grade it High; no outside party has yet scrutinized the claim.
Fact bullets:
- Announced September 24, 2026 by Google Search Central; authored by Harsh Kharbanda (PM Lead, Google Lens) and Moshe Samet (PM Lead, Search Console).
- The new "multimodal search type" filter appears in two places: the Performance report and the Generative AI features report.
- It covers four query sources: Google Lens, Circle to Search on Android, image uploads to Google Search, and Chrome's right-click "Search this image."
- Rollout is global and live immediately, with no opt-in required; data appears automatically for sites with qualifying traffic and is exportable via the existing "Export" button.
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For brands whose products get found by how they look, this is a measurement fix. Nobody ranks better in Lens because a filter exists. What the filter does is settle an argument that had no evidence on either side. When someone on the team says camera search matters for the catalog, there has been no first-party number to prove it or dismiss it. Now there is one, and it cuts both ways. A furniture brand or a packaging-heavy food line may find a slice of Search traffic big enough to earn its own budget line. A B2B software site may find close to nothing, which is worth knowing before anyone commissions a photo reshoot for Lens. (A caveat that belongs on this brief too: this is Google describing its own report, nobody outside Google has yet checked how it sorts these visits, and the number is only as good as that sorting.)
Recommended actions:
- This week, ask the web team to open the Performance report, apply the multimodal search type filter, and export the Lens, Circle to Search and image-upload figures with the date they were pulled. That date is the baseline.
- Have them run the same filter in the Generative AI features report, so the client can see how much of this camera-led traffic comes through Google's AI features.
- If the number is material, a first place to look this month is descriptive image alt text and complete structured data on the top product and landing pages, because Lens can only match what it can read.
- Give the figure its own line in the next monthly report instead of folding it into organic search, and note the baseline date beside it.
Google Search Central Blog: "Announcing web multimodal Search performance reporting in Search Console," Google, September 24, 2026, https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/09/web-multimodal-in-sc