Google deprecates social knowledge panel markup support

Be on the lookout for changes to your knowledge panels.

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Google announced that it has deprecated support for social profile markup. That means Google will no longer look at the markup you have added to your pages specifically for those knowledge panels.

The announcement. Google said it will “now automatically discover profiles to include” and won’t rely on social profile markup for finding them.

What do I do now? Google recommends you claim your knowledge panel through Google search. This is something Google allowed back in 2016 and still supports. Google posted a help document with clearer instructions on how to update your knowledge panel in Google search.

Why we should care. Many SEOs and web publishers over the years simply used social profile markup to handle these knowledge panels. Now Google says it will figure out these profiles either through your claimed profile or other automated means, but it will no longer look at your markup for this. That means you need to watch your social knowledge panels in search and see if anything changes for your profile or the profiles you manage for your clients.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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