Google Just Replaced My Knowledge Panel. Now I Control What It Says.
I have had a verified Google Knowledge Panel since 2019. Last week Google replaced it with something I can edit myself.
This is the biggest AEO change Google has shipped.
Not because of what it looks like. Because of who holds the pen.
What Actually Changed
For years a Knowledge Panel was something that happened to you.
Google assembled it from whatever it trusted. Random articles. An old photo. Third party sites outranking your own.
You could suggest an edit and wait.
The new Search profile flips that.
You hold the pen now.
What It Pulls In
Mine currently aggregates:
- Facebook, 152.4K followers
- TikTok, 139.1K followers
- Instagram, 14.9K followers
- Threads, 2.8K followers
- jeffjhunter.com, with recent posts and thumbnails
312K total followers, counted by Google, displayed under my name.
And all of it editable from inside Google. Bio, photo, pinned content, which accounts show.
The Platform It Will Not Touch
I went to add LinkedIn. I could not.
Google's documentation lists what a Search profile aggregates: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, and your website. LinkedIn is not on that list. The help page for creating a profile never mentions LinkedIn once.
That is roughly 26,000 followers Google will not vouch for on my behalf.
Worth knowing before you assume the profile covers you everywhere.
If Google will not corroborate a platform for you, your own website has to. That is what structured data on your site is actually for.
Why This Is an AEO Story, Not an SEO Story
AI search is eating traditional search. Google knows it.
So they are building a clean, structured, first party answer to the question who is this person.
Claude. ChatGPT. Gemini. Perplexity.
When any of them searches to answer a question about you, this is sitting at the top of the result.
If your profile is empty or unclaimed, the model assembles an answer from fragments.
If it is claimed and filled out, the model reads what you wrote.
Your profile is your AI business card.
One Thing Most People Will Get Wrong
Claiming it is ten minutes. That part is easy.
The mistake is writing a different bio there than the one you use everywhere else.
Search engines confirm who you are by finding the same description in the same words across independent sources. A fresh bio per platform does not give you five signals. It gives Google five candidates and makes it pick one.
Write it once. Paste it everywhere. Including here.
Ten Years of the Same Argument
I have been saying this since 2016.
Your personal brand is the one asset that compounds.
The CLEAR Copywriting Method I built ended up in university course material used worldwide. Not because it was clever. Because it was consistent.
This is the infrastructure catching up to that argument.
What To Do This Week
- Search your own name and see what a stranger sees
- Claim your profile at profile.google.com
- Write one bio, at most 500 characters, and paste it verbatim everywhere
- Link every platform Google will accept
- Pin the three pieces of content you want to be known for
Here is mine: profile.google.com/@jeffjhunter
Go look at yours.
Someone is going to search your name this week. Google is handing you the pen. Use it.
