Knowledge panels

Nobody can sell you a knowledge panel

Including us. This page is what actually produces one, what definitely does not, and what we do instead of promising.

What it is

The box that appears on the right of Google when you search for somebody established. A photograph, a one line description, a few facts, and links to their profiles.

It is not a page anybody builds. Google assembles it from a record it holds about that person, and it only appears when Google is confident enough that the person exists, is distinct from everybody else with that name, and that the facts hold up.

Google decides. Not you, not us, and not anybody charging you for one.

There is no application, no form, and no supplier relationship. Any company telling you they can guarantee one is selling something they do not own.

What actually produces one

Three things, and they are less glamorous than people expect.

1. A page about you that software can read

Most profiles are built for people. A page that also carries the small hidden labels saying this page is about a person, their name is this, their job is that, is readable by the systems deciding what to show. Almost nobody senior has one.

2. A permanent record in the database Google reads from

A public database of people, places and organisations that Google checks when it asks who somebody is. The bar for being in it is not the bar for a Wikipedia article, which is the single most useful thing to know here. Plenty of people who would never qualify for Wikipedia belong in it perfectly legitimately.

3. Your name meaning the same thing everywhere

If one profile calls you Director and another calls you Founder, and a third spells your name differently, that is three people as far as a machine is concerned. Making them agree is unglamorous and it is most of the work.

One case, and it is the reason we are confident about the method.

A client went from nothing to a knowledge panel in eleven days. No press was placed. No links were bought. What changed was a permanent record, a page machines could read, and his job title saying the same thing in every place it appeared. The panel that appeared shows facts that existed in readable form only in the record we created, which is how we know where Google got them.

What does not work

Does not work A press release on four hundred sites

The same words republished four hundred times is one source, not four hundred. It is cheap and it is transparent and it produces almost nothing here.

Does not work Buying links

Wrong tool. A panel is about whether Google can identify you, not about how many sites point at you.

Does not work More content on your own website

Your website is you talking about you. It cannot be the thing that confirms who you are.

Does work Being findable and consistent

A record that can be checked, a page that can be read, and a name that means one person. That is the whole method.

What we will not tell you

We will not tell you a panel is coming. We do not know, and neither does anybody else. Some people get one in a fortnight. Some do not get one at all, and there is no threshold anybody can point at that guarantees it.

So we carry the risk instead of promising the outcome.

Take the full entity set, and if no panel appears within three months, you get your money back in full. You do not have to argue the case. We are watching for it, so the measurement decides it rather than a conversation.

If one appears, what then

You can claim it, and it is worth doing, but it is worth being precise about what claiming gets you. It lets you suggest corrections and choose a featured image. Google reviews everything you send. It is influence over what the box says, not control of it.

The photograph is worth a word of warning. If there is no picture in the record, Google chooses one, and it will pick something. One of our own clients ended up with a still frame from a video. Supplying a photograph you own outright is the fix, and owning it outright matters more than people expect, because the photographer usually owns a picture rather than the person in it.

Somebody else already has my name

Common, and it is usually the real problem rather than the panel itself. If a musician or a footballer holds the box for your name, nobody can move them, and we would not try. What can be done is make you separately findable, so that somebody searching your name alongside your firm or your field finds you rather than them.

That is worth more than it sounds. Almost nobody is looked up by name alone.

Start by seeing what is actually there

The audit is free and takes minutes. It shows what Google currently holds about you, whether a permanent record exists, whether any of your coverage points back at you, and who else is using your name.

Check my name

Prices, what is included, and the three month refund are on the pricing section. The refund applies to the full entity set. Locked tiers open on a published rule rather than on request.