For many years, Google Search has a Knowledge Panel Section on the right sidebar, if you search for any popular name. It doesn’t matter whether the name is of a celebrity or of a company or a famous brand. This card like snippet contains different information (taken from various trusted sources) about the popular name. For example, the different social media handles of the name, a Wikipedia page if exist, Website Link, Contact Info. And more.
Now, although Google has given this special card like snippet (called the Knowledge Panel) for the Popular names for years, Today, In India, Google has launched a snippet called People Cards for anyone having a Google Account registered with a valid Mobile Number. Google has given this facility but it is not enabled by default. I mean, by default, Google hasn’t created the People Card that means a user itself has to create the card by following the steps I explained below.
How to Create People Cards in Google Search?
The pre-requisites to create people card in Google Search is having a Google Account registered with a valid Mobile Number. If you fall to have this thing then open the Google App and make sure you are logged with the same Google Account through which you want to create your People Card.
Once done, then in the Google App search for a keyword “Add me to Search”. As soon as you search this keyword, the Google search prompts you a snippet as I have shown you below.
Now, In the same Snippet, tap on the Get Started button and the search then ask you to choose the Google Account (in case your device holds the credentials of multiple Google accounts).
Once you select the Google Account, a form will open that asks you to feed the information that you would like to display publicly on your People Card on search. These Information are your Photo, Name, Location, About, Occupation, Work, Education, Hometown, Website, Social Profiles, Email, and Phone Number. While some information marked with the asterisks are mandatory to fill, the others are not.
After filling up the form with the information asked, you can then, preview the card to see how it will look on the Google Search. You can then save the same to complete creating your People Card on Google Search.
Suppose, at any later point of time, you may want to remove the people card of you from the search, then, let me tell you that, a card created by you can be removed at any point of time.
What about the Spam Cards?
Google has said, they build this experience to help anyone find information about professionals, performer, or anyone enrolled in People Card. On one hand where this experience helps a person to find information about other person, while on the other hand it also helps anyone to build their online presence. As I said above in the title, You can think of a People Card as a virtual visiting card.
Why People Card has been launched in India?
The Product Manager of Google Search, Lauren Clark has said, People Cards has been tested in India for a few years now and now has been rolled out seeing many people in India are searching for their own name on Google repeatedly.
People Card is available in English Only
For now, although, this new experience is available only in the English, the support for more languages would likely to be prompt out in future.
The Real Challenge
In a country with more than a billion people, it is highly likely that two people shares the same name and other information, then how this experience distinct between them?
Well, as I said above this experience asks the user to feed different information and with the combination of these different set of information, one can easily be differentiated.
Via: Google Blog
