We're all familiar with the "knowledge panels" that pop up in Google when a famous person's name is searched, but Google has been working on something like this, which it calls "people cards," for us regular people. We first learned about this back in February, when Google published some support pages (that it quickly took down), but the feature officially launched in India in August and is now coming to some African countries as well.

Google says the feature is aimed at people who are looking to build up their online presences. If you have a relatively common name, for instance, this might help you or your business be more easily identified in Google Search. If you're in India, Kenya, Nigeria, or South Africa, you can add yourself by searching "add me to Search" in Google (just make sure you're already signed into your Google account). From there, just click on the "Get started" button and start putting your information in. Your name, occupation, location, and a description are necessary to create a card, but you can also add your work, education, hometown, email, website, and social media links. The feature is only available in English so make sure you're Googling with that language, otherwise you won't see the card.

There are a few security measures in place: only one of these cards is allowed per Google account, and a phone number is needed to authenticate. There's also a feedback button if you come across a card with bad info or one that was created by an impersonator, and you can delete your own card whenever you'd like.

People cards are live now for Google India users, and rolling out to users in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. There's no word on if/when it'll spread to other regions at the moment, but we will certainly keep you in the loop.

UPDATE: 2020/12/07 6:29am PST BY RITA EL KHOURY

Some African countries

The article has been updated to reflect that People cards are now rolling out to some African countries.

Source: Google India Blog, Google Africa Blog