See the image below for an example of how the Google profile results displays Rand's information:
Either way, I was completely unphased at first. I read a short article about it, thought "huh... interesting," but quickly went back to work (heck, it was my second week on the job!!). Not long after, I started noticing my Twitter stream was discussing the profiles more and more. Still, I hadn't even thought about creating a profile yet, why bother right?
That's when it hit me... DUH! My name is Jennifer Lopez, and nowhere, nohow was I ever going to find myself in any SERPs for any search related to Jennifer (even Jen or Jenny) Lopez. Until now! Right?! Maybe? As soon as I realized the possible potential of my profile, I stopped what I was doing and created mine. Although I didn't fill out every little detail, I did add quite a bit of information. My focus was to make sure my name was set to Jennifer Lopez, and to list all the other names I've gone by in the past in the "other names" section.
About 20 minutes after I created my Google profile, I finally started showing up at the bottom of Google search results for the terms "Jen Lopez" and "Jenny Lopez." Wow... there I was! The first of MANY poor Jen (Jenny, Jennifer) Lopez' of the world finally getting their Google debuts! [One annoying "feature" is that the profiles don't show up in the results for famous names: Jennifer Lopez, Mike (or Michael) Myers, Michael Bolton, John Stewart. I've submitted a question to Google about this, in addition to asking @googleprofiles (a valid Google twitter account) via Twitter.]
Check out the results for a search on "Jen Lopez" below:
The profile results not only show you a brief intro about the top four, it also has links to view the full result set for your query. With links to searches on MySpace (huh? who still uses MySpace?), Facebook, Classmates (again, huh?) and LinkedIn. Think of the possibilities...!
Long ago I had decided that I had to brand myself as "Jennifer Sable Lopez" for the very reason mentioned above. As of two weeks ago, I more or less dominated the SERPs for any combination of Jennifer, Jenny, Jen + Sable + Lopez. "Sable" was the key factor though. Without it, I was nowhere to be seen. Although I still don't rank for "Jennifer Lopez," I'm quite excited that someone can now search for me sans "Sable" and find my information.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not condoning the fact that Google is pretty much forcing us to create/update our profiles in order to show up correctly in the profile section. However, before you completely throw out the idea of creating your profile, think about the positive possibilities and the doors that this may open. Think about the other people out there with YOUR same name, who never show up in the SERPs because you completely dominate it for your name. Think of the JLo's of the world, and the possibility that we'll finally be found in a search!
Profile Components
If you haven't created your profile yet, I suggest getting on the ball! The first step is to simply search for "me" in Google and the first result will take you to the first step in setting up your profile. I won't go into full detail; Danny Sullivan wrote a great tutorial on how to set up your Google profile.You can add quite a bit of information, here's a quick list of items you can fill out:
- First and Last Name
- Nickname
- Other Names
- Location Information
- Work Information
- Education Information
- Short Bio
- Links
- Profile URL
- Photo
- Contact Information
Verify Your Name
I really wanted to call out this portion because it took me quite a bit of digging before I figured out where/how to verify my name. This is one of the first things I did after setting up my profile. I have no idea if it will help with my rankings or not, but I wanted to have any kind of edge that I could get. Verifying your name is simple once you find where to do it! The only way to do this right now is through your Knol account. If you already have an account, you may already be ahead of the game, if not setting one up is quick and easy to do. Follow the steps below to get your name verified.- Sign in/sign up to Knol
- Go to "My Profile" at the top of the page (Note: if you have never created a Knol before, you'll need to click "add a Knol" - but don't actually need to create one - in order to see the "My Profile" link) [edited to add this!]
- Select "Edit My Preferences" next to your image (under your name)
- Select "Name Verification"
From here you can select one of two ways to verify your name - either by phone or credit card. I chose to verify via phone... I'd much rather have Google call me, than know my credit card number!- Once you select "Verify name by phone," you're asked to fill out your name, phone number and address. Then select "Verfiy name by phone" again.
- Finally, you get a page that displays the information you just entered, plus a verification code. As soon as you receive the call (which was within seconds) they will ask you to enter the verification code.
- Follow the directions from the phone call and voila! You're verified.
Details, Details
I'm sure people have tons of questions regarding the new profiles, so below I've listed a few details that I've found out from my initial research. These were questions I had and found the answers to.- Currently, this is for U.S. search results only.
- Links from the profiles do not pass link juice simply because they're from a Google domain. Matt Cutts responded to this question posed by Danny Sullivan.
- If you already use Gmail, it automatically uses your Gmail name as the profile URL (which is mildly annoying). However if you don't have a Gmail account, apparently you have the ability to create your own URL (as long as it doesn't already exist).
Conclusion
In general, I'm a bit annoyed that I "have" to fill out my information in order to rank, but at the same time I think this is a great tool to help get the information YOU want to show up in the results. I'd love to hear your profile stories, what you love or hate about it. Do you have any additional information to add?By the way this is my first post for SEOmoz, I'd love to hear your feedback in general. I look forward to writing more in the future!
What happens if your real name for your profile happens to be "Miami Condos?"
:-)
Sounds interesting. Let us know how it goes, "Miami Condos".
I signed up my good friend "Credit Cards", account has been approved but hasn't appeared all weekend, too competitive to show Profiles or Google has a 'smart' filter on?
Jennifer, Great first post and keep them coming. I'm with you that it's a little annoying that I have to fill out my information to rank. But like you said it's a great tool to help get information that you want to show up and not other crap.
Nice work!
Right about now I am wishing I was born from parents of Asia descent and my last name was "Seo"!
James Seo, kind of has a nice ring to it:-)
My name is "Buy Viagra" do you think they'll list me??
For all you non-US folks out there, if you want to see what the SERPS in the states look like (including profiles) then you can use the Search Google Global Firefox plugin...
https://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/google-global-view-results-different-locations/
Very handy!
You can also use www.googlecom/adpreview and select on the right where you want the page results to be from - anyplace in the world or specific states.
I have a few competitors who turned off their ads in Oregon so I would think they quit advertising or that I was a certain position when I wasn't in other places.
A note for name verification via Knol. You have to post a comment on a Knol or a new Knol article before you can verify your name. The "My Profile" link didn't show for me untill I did this.
I had the same issue with knol. Once I went to the "add a knol" link the profile link appeared in the top right. It wasn't there at first. Thanks for the great post, looking forward to more from you! :)
Thanks! You're right, I actually had forgotten that I had to click the "add a Knol" link first, then it showed up. However, I didn't actually add one. I'll update the post accordingly. Thanks!
Thanks.....I sincerely thought I was losing my mind when I couldn't find that link. Even cleaned my glasses in hopes it would 'appear' :P
Great first Post Jennifer.
It's pretty useful for us egotistical marketer/technologist types ;)
After all, the ties to social media are getting very appearent based on this particular feature, which leads me to believe that social results may stream into the UI at some point soon. Whether they will be presented to the global audience or only to registered and logged in users is another debate.
So my question now is, it's pretty easy to get this to show up in the serps for your name 'now'. What happens when more and more people sign up for a google profile.
Say your name is 'Scott Anderson' or 'David Johnson'.....there are a bazillion of other people with your name. How many of those will google be showing? How will they sort/validate when there's that many?
That's a great question! I've been wondering myself. I plan on watching my listing and see what happens with it. There are tons of people with common names. From what I can there is a "rank" within the Google Profile search. Check out the listings for a search on "Jen Lopez." I rank first, among 37 people (so far). Who knows why. But I have optimized my page, fairly well. As much as you can for something that you're not sure how to optimize for. :)
I also contacted Google about why profiles don't show up for celebrity names, and this was their response via twitter: "Celebrity names don't return results. We need to balance a good experience for you with spam protection. We are working on it." Which tells me that perhaps they're flying by the seat of their pants on this one.
I suppose only time will tell...
Yeah I suppose, as with anything new things will get worked out in time. Luckily 'Kristy Bolsinger' isn't exactly a common name :)
Jennifer,
That is a solid post! It made me go back and finish some missing items on my profile. My name is the same name as a director "James Bridges" so it is hard to show up on my name, but now I am there at the bottom of the page :)
I think this is definitely a handy task item to complete for people in many different fields, especially for real estate, which are the group I help the most. Thanks again.
Thanks for the post. We're working on reputation management for a few individuals and had debated the merits of a Google Profile. Now it's a no-brainer.
I was wondering if a Google Profile can help get your website/s rank higher in google. I have been looking for unique ways to get a jumpstart on my blogs, there are so many advices there that now seem overused, maybe this one is still on the fresher side.
Thanks in advance
Sophie
Great to find this thread. I'm writing from Australia, so even now, I don't see a special profile section of the SERP - although I can make some peoples profiles come up in the organic results - with no special place for them.
Can't make mine come up though - and it's pimped out. A search for my name gives my website, twitter account, facebook, naymz and other stuff - but no profile.
I wonder when Google is going to roll this out - surely it's a simple as the flick of a switch?
Hi, I noticed that not only are google profiles listed at bottom of SERPs for a while now, but also showing up as one of the real SERPS.
Was hoping you could shed some light on how that's achieved.
Thanks,
Dan
https://manduraleader.com
Yes google profile is wonder now
I am currently unable to see Google profiles in Canada but could see them briefly for a bit after creating my own (unverified) profile.
When I type in google.com it redirects me to google.ca. This never used to happen. Before I was able to type in google.com and see more American-ish results (for research purposes). Now it 301s me back to .ca. Not sure this started happening because I cannot recall the last time I checked.
When I created my Google profile a couple of day ago, I was surfing google.com ... like the good ol' days. I tried Google'ing a bunch of names and they all worked! Oh glorious Google.com.
Today I am back to plain 'ol google.ca and am unable to see profiles anymore.
I also went for the short form of my name, Steph Woods, versus, Stephanie Woods because there are a lot of Stephanie Woods’ and most of us use our first name. :)
Google.com has booted me back to .ca for as long as I can remember. I can see profiles on .ca though and am able to see your profile as well. *shrug* the strange world that is google.ca...
I still can not see the profile results. It doesn't make any sense that you can see them and I can not! With the advent of local and personalized search we all see different results anyways.
Regarding the kickback to .ca - I must have had a plugin before because I could check any of the dot-whatevers without being redirected (I am always installing stuff so I forget sometimes). I am stoked that @podcomplex and @Bryan Howe posted those links below.
P.S. I am unable to edit my entry above. It was supposed to say there are a lot of Stephanie Woods' and most of us use the full version of our first name. Duh.
Are you logged in or out when you're running the search? I have to be logged out or my results are screwy!
I have two Google email accounts - one of which I only created a few days ago.
When I am logged in with my older Gmail account (which contains my original Google profile), I can view profiles in the SERPs. When I log in with my new Gmail account I can not see Google profiles in the SERPs.
I thought that perhaps since my older Gmail account also had the Google profile attached to it, it was showing all Google profile results.
In order to test my theory I created a second Google profile with my second (and new) Gmail account. And interestingly, I still can not see other profiles when logged in with that new Gmail account even after I created a second profile attached to it. I can only see profiles logged in with my original Gmail address.
ah nice post, it has links pictures and easy to read thank you jlo :)
That is a good first post and I had no idea how to verify an account so thank you. I thought it was far too open to abuse (see my post above) but it seems like Google has had a little insight into this
Thanks, glad I could help! I too found it difficult to verify my name.
brilliant way to get into the rankings. How would you go about setting this up for 'web design'??
Good Job Jennifer. I really enjoyed reading your first post and will look forward to many more great posts to come!
So, SEOmoz happens to have readers called "web design", "miami condos" and no doubt there will be a few readers called "cheap credit cards" and even a user called "poker bonus" will surface soon.
You've got to love the way that every time google introduces a legitimate new ranking route, every web-spammer jumps on it ad infinitum.
Now before everyone jumps down my throat, Im sure the posters above are joking, and are legitimate white hats all the way, but that doesnt mean that the billion other mock SEO's out there arent going to do the same.
While I applaud the ingenuity, I mock those looking for the shortcut route, as it will ultimately not work out for them, leaving those of us that work on this daily for years at a time to sweep up the top SERPs!
I agree with you to an extent. However, truly genius short-term spam (let me emphasise short term) gets a page to rank as highly as possible for as long as it can, usually by the easiest means possible. That page also has to convert really well. The page ranks where it does due to entirely black hat SEO, so it's gone within days or weeks of it first appearing, but in that time, it has made its owner a small fortune. Its owner knew that this was the fate of the page; in fact, that was the plan all along.
There is also a difference between people who recognise that this isn't how to dominate a SERP for a long period and those who do this over and over again for acknowledged short-term gains. Taking advantage of a trusted domain is one way to do this, although I also agree that Google shouldn't allow spammers to take advantage of its own domain. We already saw spammers do this with Google Translate pages a couple of years ago, so hopefully they've learned that trick by now. However, this still works a charm with university domains, information sites, prominent social networks, etc. Yeah, the pages will be gone by next week, but someone will likely have made some serious money in the mean time. Rince; repeat.
Method's different; money's the same colour.
Agreed, however the fact that they don't even show the profiles when searching for "famous" names, tells me (hopefully) that they are all over the spam. But as you said, people may make some quick cash, if Google isn't on the ball. If you look at the profile results for "Jen Lopez" there are already a few spammy profiles that don't seem to be real people at all. Google wanted to play the game, so here we go! :)
Not seeing this in the UK at the moment - has it only been rolled out in the US/Canada? Looking forward to having a play!
I see Jennita's profile when searching "Jen Lopez" on google.ca, so apperently it's been rolled out in Canada too (all the mentions of US-only had me thinking it hadn't been released here yet).
What I want to know is if the vanity URL thing works with gmail.ca addresses as well as the .com ones.
That's interesting. All the information I've read says that it's for US only. But it's great that it works for CA also. Can you create a profile as well? Or just view them?
Ok, I could have sworn my gmail address was .ca, but apparently I'm wrong. *confused*
Anyway, when searching "me" while signed in to google.ca, I'm not given any options to create a profile like US peeps are reporting. I will have to do some digging... stay tuned.
Update: Ok, searched for Jennita again & followed link below to add my profile. Ended up being redirected to google.com. Soooo extrapolating from that, I'd say anyone can add one as long as you're cool with a google.com URL, rather than google.ca or google.co.uk.
I'm UK and can view and create profiles, I am constantly signed into my Google account though so that may have something to do with it
Nice! I'm taking JLo global! ;)
Great post J-LO!
am using it in UK too, but no name verification option in Knoll. Seems they trust 'rest-of-the-world'ers' implicitly or just can't be bothered.
I wonder which one it is....
So glad I never thought to link my Gmail with my Google account. Most fortunate "blunder."
I just finished setting up my profile and verified email with your easy to follow directions and references.
Thanks for your excellent and informative post.
To all you seo experts - Is there still some benefit to adding links to your profile with keyword rich text? I'm under the impression that even though the profile page won't have google's PageRank, it is still an incoming link with rich text and it appears to be followed in the source that I'm seeing. Thanks for any insights!
I just filled out one for Michael Ives, and voila, I am the only profile result. Sweet! Thank's for clueing me in, Jen!
Thanks for the information - very useful. SinceI am new to SEO and internet marketing I am learning great techniques. Thanks