P Person EngineOptimization
Person Engine Optimization

Google already
describes you.
You did not write it.

Search your own name and look at what comes back. That is a description of you, assembled by a machine, out of whatever it happened to find lying around. Old profiles. A stale job title. A photograph you would not choose. Sometimes somebody else entirely.

Almost nobody has ever chosen what Google reads about them. This is the work of choosing it on purpose, so the version it repeats is one you would recognise.

Sandeep Tiku
Chief Operating Officer, Gurugram, India
/g/11n88rs3s0
Panel returns on the bare name.
Hangs on the name
Eight
Records worked on

Every one hanging on the wall, with its identifier and the search that produced it.

Four
Hang on the bare name

Type the name and the picture appears. On the other four the file exists but the plain name does not reach it yet.

One third
Turned away

Roughly that many enquiries are told the references do not exist yet.

None
Promised

Not one panel, on any call. What is promised is the work and the refund line.

What is actually being made

The box is where you see it. The file is the thing.

The box on the right of a Google result is only where you can see it. The thing itself is a file Google keeps, with a reference number on it that looks like /g/11n88rs3s0, and everything the machine is willing to say about that person sits inside it.

This distinction is not pedantry. It is why a record can be completely real and completely invisible at the same time, and it is the difference between the two rooms below.

It is also why the same record answers when an assistant is asked who you are. AI systems read the graph long before they read your website.

Ten minutesHow a Google Knowledge Panel directly impacts your personal brand10:24
What genuinely changes once the file exists, and what does not.
Four minutesHow to be in the Google Knowledge Panel as an author, writer or entrepreneur0:19
How authorship feeds the picture Google draws.
Stage one
The painting exists

The file is live. Search its reference number and the card comes back. This is the hard part, it is real, and it is what most AI assistants are already reading. It is also invisible to anybody typing your plain name, which is why it disappoints people who were never told the two stages are separate.

Four of the eight records on this site sit here today.

Stage two
It hangs where people look

The panel fires on the bare name. Somebody types the name into Google and the box appears beside the results. This is what everyone pictures when they imagine the outcome, and it depends on Google deciding your record is the dominant answer for that string of letters.

The other four sit here.

From the wall

Four that hang on the name

Unmodified captures, all taken on the same day. Every plaque carries the identifier, and every frame opens the search that produced it, so nothing here has to be taken on trust.

Sandeep Tiku
Chief Operating Officer, Gurugram, India
/g/11n88rs3s0
Panel returns on the bare name.
Hangs on the name
Harsh Pamnani
Author and marketer, Mumbai, India
/g/11f0z6v3zr
Panel returns on the bare name. Seven titles on Google Books feeding it.
Hangs on the name
Rohit Bassi
Trainer and speaker, Dubai, UAE
/g/11gbh01wq4
Panel returns on the bare name.
Hangs on the name
Wanuri Kahiu
Film director and writer, Nairobi, Kenya
/m/09gps9j
Worked on, not built. The record predates us; we corrected and extended it.
Hangs on the name
The sittings

Six sittings, in order

A portrait is not painted in one go and neither is this. The order matters more than the effort, because each step is what makes the next one believable to a machine.

Look at what already exists

Most people are convinced they have nothing. About half turn out to have fragments already: an old conference listing, a stray database entry, a byline from years ago. Extending a fragment is faster and cheaper than starting from an empty wall, so this is always first.

Remove what contradicts

Two spellings of a name, three job titles, four different photographs and a biography that changes depending on which site you land on. Every contradiction gives a machine a reason to stay unsure, and unsure is the state that prevents a record from ever being made.

Choose the references

One page on a domain you own, written plainly and marked up so nothing has to be inferred. This becomes the reference the machine checks the other sources against, which is why it is worth writing carefully rather than beautifully.

Place the facts where machines look

Registers, catalogues, indexes and institutional pages. Nobody enjoys reading them, which is exactly why they carry weight. A viral post is worth less here than a dull entry in the right database.

Let other people say it

Coverage published by somebody with nothing to gain from saying it. This is the slow half of the work and the half that cannot be shortened, and it is the honest reason the window is measured in months.

Hand you the brush

When the record appears, you claim it yourself, inside your own account, with your own documents. We tell you exactly which screens to expect and what each rejection message means. Your papers never leave your hands.

The commission

$3,000 flat.
Half now, half on evidence.

No retainer, no monthly, and no conversation in month four about how the scope has grown.

  • Half at intake. Half when an identifier or a live card can be shown to you.
  • Sixty to ninety days of studio work, six to twelve months before it tends to hang.
  • Full refund at twelve months if nothing is live.
  • Four commissions run at a time.
  • Roughly a third of enquiries are told not to proceed, with the reason.

A machine will describe you whether or not you take part in the description.

That is the entire argument for doing this deliberately. The picture gets assembled either way. The only question is whether anybody chose the references.

Before you write

Five questions, answered plainly

Can I just buy a Knowledge Panel?

No, and the honest version of that sentence matters. Google assembles the record itself, from sources it already trusts, on a schedule nobody outside Google can see. What can be commissioned is the work of making those sources exist, agree with each other, and point at the same person.

How is this different from personal branding?

Personal branding is aimed at people, and it works on taste, story and consistency. This is aimed at a machine, and it works on whether other people have said the same thing about you. A independent record is invisible here, and a rather plain person with a book, a role and a database entry is not.

How long before anything appears?

Six to twelve months from a strong starting position. The studio work takes sixty to ninety days and it is the part we control completely. The rest is Google recrawling, reconciling and eventually deciding, and there is no lever on that.

What if it never appears?

Full refund at twelve months if nothing is live. Half the fee is taken at intake and the other half only when there is a reference number or a live card we can show you.

Do you need my identity documents?

No, and you should be wary of anyone who asks. The claim on a live panel is made by the person it belongs to, inside their own Google account. We walk you through the screens. We never hold the documents.