Hearing that Google Profiles are starting to be included in search results, I head over to my Google Profile page and see a little message:
Your profile is not yet eligible to be featured in Google search results.
To have your profile featured, add more information about yourself.
A link is given for Add more info to my profile, and learn more. I follow the learn more link, as I’ve already added plenty of info to my profile and I can’t figure out what else they could need.
The learn more section has the basics — add info to your profile, add links to your web pages, etc, etc — and then a section for “Verify your name” and get a “Verified” badge on your account.
Sweet, I can be Google Official! I click on verify your name and am brought to a page that tells me I should:
- Sign in on the Knol homepage.
- Select Preferences from the My profile drop-down menu in the top right corner of the page.
- Click Name Verification.
- Select how you want Google to verify your name.
So I sign into the Knowl homepage and at first the My profile link isn’t up in the top right corner, but after a few clicks it suddenly appears. I click on the My profile link and go to preferences and then Name Verification.
Wow, two options — Phone or credit card. Each seems easy enough, so I go with phone. I enter my name, address, phone number and click the button to have Google call me.
Alas, I am not in the “directory”, whatever that is. So I cannot use this method for verification.
Whatever, credit card is just as easy. I click Verify name by credit card. Enter name, address, credit card number… and no — “We encountered the following problem: Error: please try later.” How descriptive.
So then I gave up and added a short biography of nonsense, and then added my special super powers, and then added something I can’t find on Google. Saved my profile one more time, and voila, my profile is eligible to be featured in Google search.
Huh?
Responses and reactions
Replies
Verification by phone is not available anymore. They used US social-security number instead. But almost 1 year after your article, Google is still unable to provide "certified accounts" outside of US, while other services (like twitter for example) can do it.Kind of weird...
wow, I would never put my credit card or phone number in there :( I am having the same problem, I'll try out what you said.
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