I hate this fucking thing.
See, you’re reading this because you want one. You’re wondering how to get one. You’re thinking it’s impossible to get one.
It’s very simple. To get a Google Knowledge Panel, you need to write a book and upload it to Google Books under the name you want to get a Google Knowledge Panel under, or, you release music under the name you want the Google Knowledge Panel to be titled. That’s it. That’s the whole damned thing.
As of this writing, I have something like 24 Google Knowledge Panels. Some come; some go; some are dead. Some are permadead. I don’t know which is which anymore, and I don’t care to keep track of any of them.
When it comes to Google Knowledge Panels, I have a TV show. I have a record label. At one point, I had a credit for appearing in ‘movies’. The links above may one day die as well. With strange aeons, and all that jazz.
But there are some that I’m going to keep. Such as the one for my first book, my second book, and my third. In point of fact, I am Verified on / with Google 8 fucking times.
In Cool Leg, I was taught to spout my ethos (my authority) on a matter, first. Then there was Pathos, and Logos. Fuck Pathos. These are not baby kittens. This shit is fucking dumb.
In the past, and probably still today, Google has scraped Wikipedia, and especially Wikidata, in order to figure out who to make a Google Knowledge Panel of. I think their thinking was, hey, if Wikipedia is really well-guarded, and they only write about notable peoples, then it’s a nice little shortcut. And so, everybody else thought so. Which led to people spamming their autobiographies on Wikipedia, looking for an easy Google Knowledge Panel.
For what it’s worth, it works. For what it’s also worth, if you’re a YouTuber with 1,000+ subscribers, you can write your own article on Wikitubia, just fine, and that will probably get you a Google Knowledge Panel. But it’s not very stable, and there are basically only children running that place. You really want to argue with kids? On the Internet?
So don’t do that. Just write a book or release a song, and get your Knowledge Panel. If you want it that much.
I thought about not writing this, but, it’s no ‘trick’. This is simply how it works.
Other things to think about
Do you want your own icon for your Google Knowledge Panel?
Then go to the Hamburger menu on your Google Knowledge Panel, and click Send Feedback. Then tell them what you want the icon to be, give them the URL from some good place and the webpage that you got the icon from (for example, I used my verified YouTube page), and they’ll usually change your icon for you, after you ask them 3 or 4 times. They’re not too bright, over there.
You can also change your title this way.
How do I get my social media profiles in my Google Knowledge Panel?
If you have a Wikipedia page and a Wikidata entry, add them to the Wikidata entry. If not, Send Feedback on the Google Knowledge Panel and tell them what your social media profiles are. If you’ve gotten Verified as the person controlling the Panel, which you should absolutely do by clicking the Hamburger menu and saying ‘Claim this knowledge panel’, then they’ll already be able to confirm what your social media is.
How do I get my Entity Home (my website’s address) to appear in my Google Knowledge Panel?
Wikidata. Put your website in there.
If not, pray. You could ask them to put it in there for you, through Send Feedback. Or you could have a website with the same name as your Google Knowledge Panel. Your choice.
Help! My Google Knowledge Panel keeps on disappearing!
Yes it does. Google does not care about you. Always remember that.
The Knowledge Panel will disappear randomly for about a year and a half. After that, it’ll usually stay. The best you can do is just register a bunch of social media profiles and put the same information on all of them. The Google Knowledge Panel works by collating all the information about a person, into one fucking place. If the information isn’t the same all over, it’ll have more trouble than it would if the information was the same.
How do I get images of myself in my Google Knowledge Panel?
Mostly pray. But you can look at what Jason Barnard does, by Googling him.
The trick is just have a bunch of websites and post pictures of yourself, with alt text that says your name, or the name of your Google Knowledge Panel.
Contrary to popular belief, no, they don’t have to be pictures of real flesh-and-blood human beings. Lots of cartoon characters get through.
Additional nonsense
How do I get my Twitter carousel to appear on my Search Engine Results Page (SERP)?
Tweet consistently, but rarely. It goes away if you tweet too much; it goes away if you delete tweets; it goes away for no reason.
How do I get the Articles carousel to appear on my Search Engine Results Page?
You have to write for some sort of publication where they have an Authors page, and you have an Author page there, and also, you’ve written an article. Google has to consider it a News site. Once Google considers it to be that, you’ll be able to eventually get an Articles carousel to pop up (in theory). Haven’t managed to do it! Probably never will! But that’s the theory.
okay that’s it
go home
wait I have more (somehow)
When I first got my Google Knowledge Panel, it was from the first book, Dragons: the Anunnaki. It happened pretty much instantly, but I only noticed about 5 or 7 days afterwards.
This, alone, is not enough to keep a public Google Knowledge Panel. So, I released music. And slowly, as I released more, and more, and more? I haven’t seen this thing disappear for like a year and a half or so, now. It is finally here to stay.
The thing is, though, it’s not really that useful. The only people who really want a Google Knowledge Panel are those who are not actually famous. Very few really famous people actually claim these. They’re unloved by actual celebrities.
Tom Cruise is one of the outliers who actually has someone managing his Panel. Brad Pitt’s Panel is unclaimed; so is Keanu Reeves’. Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson’s Panels are similarly unclaimed, though Robert Downey Jr.’s is claimed. To give you an idea of how many people actually give a shit. (This is assuming that someone with these celebrities is actually the one who has claimed the Panel. I’ve heard stories of the wrong people claiming Panels…)
Overall, figuring out how to generate one for myself was an interesting journey. Unfortunately, Google is going down the tubes just like Amazon is, and it’s not gonna fucking matter, pretty soon.
Will A.I. be the future? I have no idea. I’ve been in machine learning / A.I. for the past 11 or 12 years. I thought that VTubing would be the future, and here we are: everybody’s a goddamned VTuber.
It would be interesting to teach you how to ‘poison’ an A.I.’s results about yourself, but I largely don’t want to tell you, and I absolutely do not actually care to any further.