Multimodal search has quietly turned every product photo, infographic and brand asset into a potential entry point. Users now search by text, voice and image—and combine them, such as snapping a dress and typing ‘same in blue.’ For D2C and e-commerce teams, image SEO has moved from a nice-to-have to a technical growth lever.
Google Search Console gives you a direct read. In the Performance report, filter Search type to ‘Image’ or use the new ‘Multimodal’ option under Web. That surfaces impressions and clicks from Google Lens, Circle to Search, uploaded images and Chrome’s Search this image. A page with no image impressions may point to crawl or index issues, though it isn’t proof by itself.
Start with crawlability, not content
Before rewriting alt text, confirm Googlebot can actually reach the image files. Inspect the page URL in Search Console, then run a live test on the image URL itself; a page being indexed doesn’t mean its images are. Search for your own image with the src: operator in Google Images—if your domain doesn’t appear, investigate indexing. Check log files for Googlebot-Image activity, and crawl image URLs in Screaming Frog with the user agent set to Googlebot Image to catch 3XX, 4XX or 5XX responses. Finally, test one real product photo with Google Lens or Circle to Search to see if Google connects your image to your site.
Fix the technical blockers that hide images
Common issues sit in configuration, infrastructure and rendering. robots.txt rules or noimageindex directives can block image URLs even when pages are crawlable. CDNs and botwalls can stop image bots, especially when images live on a separate subdomain such as media.example.com. JavaScript-dependent loading and lazy loading that only fires on scroll can hide images from Googlebot, which doesn’t scroll. Broken or redirecting URLs, plus dynamic parameters that create duplicate image versions, also waste crawl. Use the rendered HTML view in Search Console to confirm each priority image is an img element with a valid src, and stick to supported formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP and AVIF.
Give the bots context to understand the image
Findability is only half the game. Multimodal search ranks images that match the query’s meaning, so the surrounding page copy, descriptive titles and relevant alt attributes still carry weight. Structured data adds more signal. Schema.org ImageObject can communicate licensing and may make an image eligible for the licensable badge, while primaryImageOfPage tells Google which visual to prioritize when a page has several.
A paywall nuance matters for publishers and gated content. Google’s image metadata guidance asks publishers to make pages with images accessible without an account or login. Paywall structured data alone does not conclusively cover image discovery, so don’t assume gated visuals are visible to Google.
The 15-minute multimodal image audit
Bring this checklist to your next SEO or dev sprint. It turns a broad topic into a repeatable technical review:
- Record image impressions from the Search type ‘Image’ and new ‘Multimodal’ reports.
- Verify Googlebot-Image access, HTTP responses and image sitemap coverage.
- Check rendered HTML for all priority images as valid img elements with stable URLs.
- Keep one canonical URL per image and remove redirects or dynamic parameters.
- Confirm alt text, page context and structured data for key product images.
Multimodal search doesn’t require a new discipline. It rewards teams that get technical image SEO right before adding creative flourishes. When Google Lens and Circle to Search make every image a search entry point, crawlability is the new discovery.
Source: Search Engine Journal
