If you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, artist, or anyone who does business online but is not a celebrity, you would want people to get the best results about you when they search your name. Having top search results is not always that easy but maybe this new thing that Google is testing out in India will help. They are launching “people cards” so you can create your own virtual card or your own profile which has basic information about you and links to all your online profiles.
Before you go out and scramble to create your “people card”, Google is currently testing it out in India and in English only. But of course, we can always be prepared for when they will make this available elsewhere. Setting up your card is pretty straightforward. Log in to your Google account and then search the phrase “add me to search”. You will then be led to a page where you will be able to create the card and create a public profile.
You will then need to fill up the form with the required info like your name, occupation, location, and an about bio. You can also add other information like education, hometown, links to your social media and websites. You can even add your email and phone number if that’s something you need to post out there and you’re okay with it being seen in your public profile. When people search for you, then they’ll see the public profile you created.
Since this system may be gamed and amused by some for whatever purpose, Google has placed some protections and controls. You are only allowed to create one people card per Google account and you need to give a phone number to authenticate the account. If you see a card that you believe was created by an impostor, you can tap the feedback link to report it. They say there are mechanisms in place to “protect against abusive or spammy content”.
In case you want to delete your profile, you can always do so. No news yet when they will roll it out to other countries as well so for now, only those in India can create the people card.