Google Knowledge Panel 101
Here's a fun trick you can try at home: Google the first proper noun that you can think of—just about any person, place, or thing will work—and see what pops up. Nine times out of ten, the top result you're going to see is a Google Knowledge Panel. It's maybe the most important real estate on the web!
If your brand has a Knowledge Panel entry, then this little box appears at the top right of all Google results related to your name brand name. The Knowledge Panel is always above the fold and can often appear far more prominently than your website or other organic results. As such, it's the first thing customers, clients, investors, and journalists are going to see when they search for you.
As you can imagine, that makes this a pretty important digital asset. A digital flashcard on your company for fast facts. An asset you can’t really own or edit yet informs thousands of online stakeholders.
Where does the information come from?
While Google’s algorithm is rather opaque on how it ties the panel together we have determined some of the main sites that feed into the panel:
- Wikidata
- Your website, specifically your About Us & Team pages
- Crunchbase
- Reuters
- Forbes
- Glassdoor
What can you do if the information about your brand is wrong?
That’s a tough one! The first thing to do is to make sure the information in the sources listed above is all accurate. The Google Knowledge Panel algorithm is difficult to predict, so one day it could grab your logo (or other information) from Wikipedia and then suddenly switch sources to Crunchbase the next day.
That means you need to make sure all these different platforms are uniform in their description of you, social links, logos, etc. so that your Knowledge Panel (AKA your top search result!) is consistent and correct.
Additionally, if you haven’t already you MUST make it a priority for you or your brand to “claim” your Knowledge Panel. When you successfully claim your Knowledge Panel you both protect it from potential vandalism and also ensure you’re able to suggest potential changes in-line with Google policies.
If you need help beefing up or correcting information on a Knowledge Panel reach out to shout@luminodigital.com. While only Google holds the true keys to these, Lumino is one of few able to help you determine what information may be feeding into yours and of those what sources are inconsistent, incorrect, and able to be fixed in order to reflect it on the Panel.
