Claim Your Candidate's Google Knowledge Panel (2 minute read)

If you are a candidate for office,  the accuracy of your public presence on the internet is critical. The candidate and campaign have some online information within their control, such as their website, posts on social, or paid content the campaign might purchase and place.

Many candidates and campaigns are not aware that knowledge panels on Google search can be actively managed.

So what is a Knowledge Panel?  You see them all the time, but you may not have known what they are called or that they can be edited.  It’s that box of information on the upper right of search results that you frequently see when you Google something. For example, this partial Knowledge Panel of Rihanna:

If you are the candidate or can prove various levels of control within the candidate’s domain (for example, JaneDoe4Congress.com), you can claim the knowledge panel and suggest edits.

Why should you do this? The most obvious reason is to make sure that the most accurate information is available and to correct anything that might be wrong. The second, and equally important, is to prevent anyone else from acquiring access and then posting fake information.

It’s easy to get started. The first step is to claim the Knowledge Panel. You do this by clicking on the “Claim” button at the bottom of the Knowledge Panel:

Google will then walk you through a series of steps to verify and prove you have the right and permission to edit the information, including:

If you are a representative of the candidate, and you are claiming the Knowledge Panel on their behalf, you can verify by signing in to one of the profiles listed. These profile options include YouTube, Search Console, Twitter.

Once verified, if you want to make edits you will:

1. Search for yourself or the entity you represent and find its Knowledge Panel.
2.  Sign into the Google Account associated with the entity that you represent and check that your Web and app activity is turned on. 
3. At the top of the Knowledge Panel, click Suggest an edit. You’ll now be able to click the information that you want to change. 
4. In the response box that opens, write a short description of your suggested change, why your suggestion is correct, and a publicly accessible URL that confirms your suggested change. 
5. Click Send

For help on knowledge online panels, go to https://support.google.com/knowledgepanel/?hl=en#topic=9164489