How to Claim Your Brand's Knowledge Panel
Knowledge panels are the boxes that dominate the right side of Google when you search for brands, proper nouns (people, places, things), and other particular terms that Google has identified as significant. These panels are segmented by Google to help users receive immediate answers to their search queries. Knowledge panel data comes from Google's Knowledge Graph, which is the database Google uses to enhance search results and understand semantic search context.
Knowledge panels are often confused with Google Business profiles, which are generated for local businesses that serve customers at a particular location or within a designated service area. Business profiles are indeed quite similar, but there are key distinctions. Knowledge panels exist to provide information, or more specifically to answer search questions. Google automatically creates knowledge panels for businesses or brands that achieve national prominence, especially in the form of a Wikipedia page.
Business profiles, on the other hand, are effectively promotional and exist to connect businesses with customers. Business owners can create their own business profiles and edit existing entries at any time (although they cannot remove certain details, like negative reviews).
Knowledge panels cannot be directly edited by brands, but they can be claimed by owners or employees using verified accounts. Changes to the panels can then be suggested to Google administrators and will be implemented if non-controversial.
This may sound obvious, but: Claiming your knowledge panel is really important! There are few pieces of internet real estate as important for your brand as that small box, because it's exactly where customers, clients, investors, and even journalists are going to look for facts about your business, from website url to social media accounts to annual revenue and more.
Thankfully, claiming a knowledge panel is a relatively straightforward process. You will need to identify the correct person within your organization to reach out to Google, though, as only "verified" accounts can be used to submit claims.
Finding Your Knowledge Panel & Submitting a Claim
This step is simple: Search for yourself or the brand you represent. If you or your brand has a knowledge panel, it will appear at the top right of search results on desktop browsers and at the top of search results on mobile browsers. The "Claim this knowledge panel" option will appear at the bottom of the panel.
Verifying Your Account
Before the knowledge panel can be claimed, Google will first have to verify that the person submitting the claim is a verified account associated with the person or business. For this reason, it's important that the submitter be either a prominent person within your organization (like a CEO or founder) or a brand manager with access to your YouTube, Google Search Console, Twitter, or Facebook accounts.
In some cases, the submitter may need to upload a document that verifies a business association and provide a selfie holding a government-issued piece of identification.
Suggested Edits
Once you've been verified as an authorized representative of your business or brand, you’ll see a "Suggest an edit" option near the top of your claimed knowledge panel.
You will then be able to provide general feedback for the entire panel or suggest specific edits for individual fields. For business and brand entires, the knowledge panel may include fields for:
Customer support phone number
Headquarter location
Founding date
Annual revenue
Key people
Number of employees
Social media accounts
Number of locations
Mission statement
and more
If you want to change information in a specific field, you will need to summarize the change you want to see. In the submission field, clearly state the change you're seeking, and if relevant provide web links to pages that confirm or support the edits. These may be links to your own website or to reliable third-party coverage. You should also explicitly state why you believe your suggestion should replace the existing content..
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 the panel, Lumino is one of the few agencies 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 in search.
