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Google People Cards virtual business cards come to Search in India

Damien Wilde | Aug 11 2020 - 5:06 am PT

Google People Cards — which are essentially virtual business cards — have now started appearing in Google Search in India.

The move was announced in an official Google India blog post, with some further information on just how these mini public profiles will work. Google People Cards are aimed at giving professionals a one-stop-shop for all of their key information. This should help make it even easier to work out just who is who online.

If you’re a business professional, performer, or anyone looking to build up your own online presence, you might have a website, social profiles, and other information spread across many sites. If you’re just getting started, you may not have a website or much of an online presence at all.
Today, we are solving these challenges with a new feature called people cards. It’s like a virtual visiting card, where you can highlight your existing website or social profiles you want people to visit, plus other information about yourself that you want others to know.

Creating a People Card is as easy as signing into your Google account and then searching for your name or “add me to Search” and then tapping the prompt that appears. You’ll be able to add a profile image, a description of yourself, website, and social media links, and should you feel comfortable to do so, your email and telephone number.

Google will only let you create one People Card per account. This will help ensure that information and data is reliable, while there are some under-the-hood protections to maintain said information is consistent. A telephone number is required to authenticate the legitimacy of an account — but you don’t need to put that on your public profile.

By allowing people to add themselves to Search directly, this should help you find the right person far quicker. It might even be a way to help ensure your public profile is right there at the top of Search rather than hidden behind pages of random information.