What Is a Google Knowledge Panel?

The panel arrived with the Knowledge Graph. On 16 May 2012 Amit Singhal announced it on Google's blog under the title "Introducing the Knowledge Graph: things, not strings". At launch the graph held more than 500 million objects and more than 3.5 billion facts and relationships, drawn among others from Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. The new view started for US English users. On 4 December 2012 Google added Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian and Italian.

Google calls the box "knowledge panel" in English. The German help center is titled "Infobox-Hilfe", while its text says "Knowledge Panel". In Spanish Google uses two names: "panel de información" in the help for Spain and "panel de conocimiento" in the version for Latin America.

Google's help describes knowledge panels as boxes "automatically generated" from various sources across the web. For some topics, such as films or music, Google works with data partners and combines their data with open web sources. For sports scores, stock prices and weather it licenses data. A third source is the subjects themselves: people and organizations that have claimed their panel and suggested edits.

The facts sit in the Knowledge Graph, which Google describes as a database of billions of facts about people, places and things. In May 2020 Danny Sullivan wrote that it held over 500 billion facts about five billion entities, and that Wikipedia is "a commonly-cited source, but it's not the only one".

Whether a panel appears is decided by Google's systems. According to the help, panels are created when there is enough information on the open web, and they show up when the information is highly relevant to a query. Google's policy is not to create or delete knowledge panels manually. Panels also update on their own as information on the web changes. On desktop the panel sits to the right of the results; on mobile, Google often shows one or more panels between the results instead.

Google lists the typical content of a panel as a title and short summary, a longer description, one or more images, key facts such as a birth date or a location, and links to social profiles and official websites. Some topics get extra information.

Source: Google, "A reintroduction to our Knowledge Graph and knowledge panels" (20.05.2020); Google Search Central, Organization structured data; Knowledge Panel Help (accessed 10.11.2026).

Local businesses that serve customers at a location or in a service area are a separate case. Their box is a Google Business Profile, which looks similar but is created and managed through its own tool.

Google explained the panel in 2012 with its own examples. A search for [taj mahal] can mean the monument, the Grammy-winning musician or a casino in Atlantic City; the Knowledge Graph lets the user pick the one they mean. For Marie Curie the panel shows when she was born and died, and also her education and scientific discoveries.

The facts shown depend on what people ask about an entity. According to Google, users want to know which books Charles Dickens wrote, but for Frank Lloyd Wright they are more interested in the buildings he designed. Google wrote that the information shown for Tom Cruise answered 37 percent of the next queries people asked about him.

Source: Google, Knowledge Panel Help, articles 9163198 and 7534842 (accessed 10.11.2026).

Source: Google, Knowledge Panel Help; Google Search Central, Featured snippets (accessed 10.11.2026).

A missing panel does not prove that an entity is missing from the Knowledge Graph. The graph also shows up in other formats, such as answers to factual questions. One way to check is the Knowledge Graph Search API, which returns entries with identifiers like "kg:/m/0dl567". Google itself says the API is not suitable for production-critical use and is moving it to Cloud Enterprise Knowledge Graph.

There is no application form. Google writes that when, where and how a query shows a panel is decided automatically and "isn't something we can or would influence". A panel you saw in the past may no longer display.

Not every panel can be claimed. Google's help names the problems it handles through support: a panel that mixes two people or organizations with the same or similar name, wrong websites or profiles, and a panel already claimed by someone the subject cannot identify. In that last case Google starts an account recovery and waits three business days for the current owners to answer; if they do not, the panel becomes claimable again.

Google's own rules also limit what it removes. It may remove information that is demonstrably false or outdated, for example when legal documents or expert consensus show it. It may decline to act on facts that are reasonably disputed. Titles are changed only with substantial evidence that the automated choice is not the most representative one.

Claiming, as described in Google's help "Get verified on Google" (English version, accessed 10.11.2026):

• Sign in to a Google Account, or create one.
• Search Google for yourself or the entity you represent and find the panel.
• At the bottom of the panel, click "Claim this knowledge panel". It may also sit in the "About" section; on mobile it is in the menu.
• Review the information.
• Sign in to one of the official sites or profiles Google lists: YouTube, Search Console, Twitter or Facebook. If Google cannot find a linked site, it asks for more information.

Suggesting an edit as a verified user, as described in "Submit feedback on content about you" (accessed 10.11.2026):

• Sign in to the Google Account you used to verify your identity and check that Web and App Activity is turned on.
• Search for your name or the entity, then click "Suggest edits" at the top of the panel.
• Click Edit next to the information you want to report, one item at a time.
• Describe what is wrong, what should be removed and which public URLs support the change, then click Send. Google says it reviews feedback from verified users within a few days and emails the result.

Without verification, anyone can use the Feedback link at the bottom of the panel, or the three-dot menu on mobile.

• Check first whether the entity exists in the Knowledge Graph, for example with the Knowledge Graph Search API.
• Keep name, logo, description and profiles consistent on your website and on the official profiles Google links to.
• Add Organization structured data to your home page; Google says it can influence which logo appears in your knowledge panel.
• After verifying, add colleagues as managers so access does not depend on one person.
• To change a description, correct it at the source it comes from; Google says that changing the source usually changes the panel.

• Treating the Business Profile and the knowledge panel as the same thing.
• Paying someone who promises a panel; Google says it does not create panels manually.
• Asking Google to add an image when the panel has none.
• Bundling several corrections into one feedback form.
• Signing in with a different Google Account from the one used to verify.

This entry was written in November 2026 with AI assistance. It started from an analysis of the top search results in the US, Germany and Spain, and adds what several of them leave out: the difference from the Ipsos research panel, how to suggest changes without claiming, how a panel differs from a Business Profile, and both of Google's Spanish names. Every step comes from Google's own help, quoted with the date it was read. It was reviewed before publication and contains no client data.