Google has went all social with a new service called Google Profiles. This means when you “Google Me“, for instance, as I already have a profile set up, a picture of me features in the actual SERPS. At first it’s a vanity thing, but Google’s really getting in on the act of actual finding and giving you more user friendly information on people now possibly with an eye on the success Facebook is.
It used to be reseved for famous people, social networkers and people with websites, but now anybody can have a crack at featuring at page one in Google for their name (my first act as an seo back in the day was to see how many of the top 20 positions I could get for my name – and I think I ended up with most of them at one point). It’s not really something I am that interested in any more, but you might find it useful for your own purposes.
Search for ‘Shaun Anderson’ for instance when logged into my Google Account and my picture appears at the bottom of the SERPS.
It is working at the moment in the UK SERPS as the screenshot above shows. From a test I did, it’s clear Google is reading the whole page when coming to ranking the Google Profile so better get it optimised fully. The page itself DOES rank for your name, and DOES pass some anchor text value in the test I did too, although that’s before I changed the vanity URL (or it might not now). Google encourages you to, for instance, add your other social network profiles (probably to see who to buy next lol). Don’t be stupid and spam it of course!
I don’t think much of the vanity URL but I was lucky to have a gmail account near the beginning so my Vanity URL (which is tied to your Google Account) is www.google.com/profiles/anderson.shaun although I will think I’ll use Shaun Anderson as the text in this case. :)
It’s been connected to my Google Account for a while, so your actual profile page could still be one of the organic listings as well as this new feature, but Google just announced they will be making more of Google Profiles in the future – why not get yours for free. There’s more at TechCrunch.
Hey, it’s another way for people to find you. And it’s free. And it gets your face on Google. And it’s another low quality link as well, for now anyways.
Related: Search For Me On Google
wow thanks for providing such wonderful information and bringing it to my attention i will check it out and register for a google account since you stated that its another way in which people can find you in the search engines as well as passing some seo juice which is always a plus thanks for the information
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more articles from you in the future. - Jack
Thank you for all the great and interesting info… I visit often and have never been disappointed… June
I just spent 10 minutes filling out the profile. I’m competing with a famous actor with the same name, so let’s see if I can come up before him.
Cheers for the tip, I just secured http://www.google.com/profiles/jack.osborne :)