What If Your Next Customer Finds Your Website Without Typing a Single Word?
Imagine someone walking through a shopping market in Delhi. They see a stylish pair of shoes in a shop window, take a picture with their phone and use Google to find similar products online.
Another person notices a machine part at a factory and uploads its photograph to Google to identify the product and find a supplier.
A third person sees an interesting design, circles it on their Android phone and searches for websites offering something similar.
In all three situations, the customer is searching without relying entirely on typed keywords.
Now imagine that your website appears in the results. That person might visit your product page, explore your services or even contact your business.
For years, website owners have mainly measured search performance by looking at the keywords people type into Google. But search behaviour is changing, and visual search is becoming another way people discover information, products and businesses.
There is encouraging news for website owners and digital marketers. On 24 September 2026, Google announced a new reporting feature in Google Search Console that helps websites understand how they perform when people search using images.
As the founder of Digi Ustad, I believe this update gives businesses another useful reason to pay attention to their website images, product photographs and visual content.
Let’s understand what Google has introduced, why it matters and how businesses can use this information to improve their digital strategy.
1. What Has Google Introduced?
Google has added a new multimodal search filter to Search Console’s performance reporting.
In simple language, this helps separate web search activity that starts with an image from activity that starts with a traditional text-based search.
Google’s announcement covers four types of visual search experiences:
- Google Lens: Users can point their camera at an object or use an image to find related information.
- Circle to Search: Android users can circle something on their screen and search for it.
- Image uploads to Google Search: Users can upload an image to find related information.
- Chrome’s “Search this image” feature: Users can right-click an image in Chrome and search for it.
The new reporting is available through the Performance on Search results report and the report for Generative AI features.
The rollout began globally on 24 September 2026. Websites will see relevant metrics when they receive traffic from these types of searches.
You can read the announcement on Google Search Central’s official blog.
This is useful because website owners can now get a clearer view of a type of search activity that was previously harder to separate in their performance analysis.
2. Why Is This Update Important for Businesses?
Let’s consider a simple example.
Suppose you own an online furniture store. Your website contains photographs of sofas, dining tables, office chairs and beds.
A potential customer sees a sofa they like at a friend’s house. Instead of typing a long description into Google, they take a photograph or search using a similar image.
If Google discovers relevant content on your website and shows it in the results, the customer may have an opportunity to visit your store.
The same principle can apply to clothing retailers, home improvement companies, electronics sellers, travel businesses and many other industries.
A person might search visually for a product, a destination, a design idea or an object they want to identify.
This means your website images are not only there to make your pages look attractive. They can also help communicate what your business offers.
However, there is an important point to remember: having good images does not guarantee visibility in visual search. Google’s systems decide which results are relevant, and the new report helps you understand performance rather than promising additional traffic.
For businesses, the real value is having better information to guide decisions.
3. What Is Multimodal Search in Simple Language?
The word “multimodal” may sound technical, but the idea is straightforward.
Traditional text search starts mainly with words. For example, someone might type “wooden dining table in Delhi” into Google.
Visual or multimodal search can start with an image instead. A person might show Google a photograph of a wooden dining table and look for similar products.
People can also combine images with additional context or questions, depending on the search experience.
Think about how you search for something when you do not know its name. You might recognise the object when you see it, but describing it accurately in words can be difficult.
Visual search helps bridge that gap.
For businesses, this creates another opportunity to make products, services and useful information discoverable.
For digital marketers, it also raises an important question: are we paying enough attention to the images published on our clients’ websites?
In many cases, website owners spend considerable time improving headings, keywords and written content but overlook the information that their images communicate.
This is a good time to review both.
4. How Can You Find This Data in Google Search Console?
If you already use Google Search Console, you can begin by checking your website’s performance reports.
Here is a practical process.
Step 1: Open Google Search Console.
Select the correct website property. Make sure you are viewing the property for which you want to analyse search traffic.
Step 2: Open the Performance report.
Go to the report for Search results.
Step 3: Find the Search type filter.
Look for the new multimodal option within the web search reporting options.
Step 4: Select Multimodal.
This filters the report to the relevant image-initiated web search activity covered by Google’s reporting.
Step 5: Review the available metrics.
Look at the performance information and available page-level details. Compare the results over different periods where sufficient data is available.
Step 6: Export the data if needed.
Google provides an Export option, allowing you to download the information and analyse it in other tools.
You can also check the Generative AI features report for the relevant multimodal reporting.
Keep in mind that these reports will not necessarily show data for every website. Google says the metrics appear when a site receives traffic from the covered searches.
If you do not see data, it does not automatically mean that something is broken on your website.
5. What Should You Look for in the Report?
The most useful approach is to focus on patterns rather than expecting an impressive number immediately.
For example, imagine that your website has 50 important product pages. Some pages contain original photographs, detailed descriptions and useful supporting information, while others use generic images and have very little text.
When you review your Search Console data, you may discover that certain pages receive more visual-search activity than others.
That observation gives you a starting point for further investigation.
Ask yourself:
- Which pages are receiving impressions or clicks from multimodal searches?
- Are these pages important to the business?
- Do the images accurately represent the products or services?
- Is the surrounding content clear and useful?
- Are visitors able to take the next step easily?
Do not assume that a page receives visual-search traffic because it has a particular image size or filename. The report provides performance data, not a complete explanation of why Google selected a page.
Use the information to form questions, investigate the pages and test improvements carefully.
6. How Can You Improve Your Website’s Visual Content?
You do not need to rebuild your entire website. Start with a few important pages and make practical improvements.
Use clear, relevant images
Choose images that accurately represent the product, service or subject of the page.
For an e-commerce store, use clear product photographs from useful angles. For a service business, include genuine project photographs or relevant visuals that help customers understand the work.
Avoid adding unrelated stock images simply to make a page look busy.
Write descriptive image alt text
Alt text helps explain an image’s content to people using assistive technology and can provide useful context about the image.
For example, instead of using alt text such as “image123”, describe what is actually shown.
A photograph of a finished wooden dining table might use a description such as “Six-seater wooden dining table with a natural finish.”
Keep the description accurate and natural. Do not stuff every image with multiple keywords.
Decorative images that add no meaningful information may need empty alt text, depending on their purpose.
Give image files meaningful names
A filename such as wooden-dining-table-natural-finish.jpg is more descriptive than IMG_9482.jpg.
Descriptive filenames can make image libraries easier to manage and provide context, but they are not a guarantee of higher rankings.
Add useful information around the image
An image should make sense within the page.
If you sell a product, explain its material, dimensions, features and intended use where relevant. If you provide a service, explain the process, benefits and common customer questions.
This gives visitors more information to work with and helps place the image in context.
Check page performance and mobile usability
Images should be displayed correctly on mobile devices and should not unnecessarily slow down the website.
Use suitable image dimensions, modern formats where appropriate and compression that preserves acceptable quality.
Make sure important images can be accessed by search engines and that the page containing them can be crawled and indexed.
These steps support the overall quality of the website, although no individual image optimisation technique guarantees visual-search visibility.
7. What Does This Mean for SEO, AEO and GEO?
At Digi Ustad, we look at website visibility from several connected perspectives.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, focuses on helping a website become discoverable through search engines. This includes technical health, useful content, internal linking and relevant page structure.
AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, focuses on making information clear and useful for questions and direct answers.
GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, focuses on making content useful, understandable and credible in generative AI experiences.
Visual search adds another useful dimension to this work.
A business should not focus only on written keywords while ignoring the images that represent its products, projects and services.
For example, a home renovation company could publish original project photographs, explain the work completed, identify relevant materials and link to a detailed service page.
An online retailer could provide clear product images, accurate specifications and useful descriptions.
A digital marketing agency could use screenshots and properly explained examples to demonstrate its work, while protecting client information.
The objective is not to trick Google or AI systems. It is to make the website genuinely useful and easier to understand.
The new Search Console report helps businesses measure one part of that broader effort.
8. A Simple Seven-Day Action Plan
Here is how I would approach this update for a client at Digi Ustad.
Day 1: Open Search Console and check whether the multimodal filter is available for the website.
Day 2: Identify five important pages, such as key service pages or high-value product pages.
Day 3: Review the images on those pages for relevance, clarity and accuracy.
Day 4: Improve missing or unhelpful alt text and organise image filenames where appropriate.
Day 5: Review the written content around the images and add useful details where customers need them.
Day 6: Check mobile usability, image loading, indexing and relevant internal links.
Day 7: Record the current Search Console data and establish a baseline for future comparisons.
After that, review performance periodically. Look for meaningful changes rather than expecting results immediately.
The right priorities will depend on the business, the type of website and the data available.
My Final Thoughts
Google’s new multimodal reporting is a useful development because it gives website owners more insight into how people discover their content through visual search.
For a long time, many businesses have concentrated on typed keywords and traditional rankings. Those areas remain important, but the way people search is becoming more varied.
Someone might type a question, speak into a phone, upload an image or circle an object on a screen.
Businesses do not need to chase every new feature blindly. They need to understand how customers find information and make their websites useful across those experiences.
My recommendation is simple: check your Search Console data, review your most important images and improve the pages that matter most to your business.
You may not see multimodal traffic immediately, and optimisation cannot guarantee that your website will appear in visual search. But understanding your performance gives you a better starting point for making informed decisions.
At Digi Ustad, we believe good digital marketing begins with understanding how customers discover your business—and then making it easier for them to find the information they need.
To learn more about improving your website’s search visibility, visit Digi Ustad.
