How I got my Google knowledge panel back

If you searched my name a while ago, Google showed a small knowledge panel on the right. It said I was a graphic designer, which I'm not, but at least it was there. A few days after I shipped a redesign of this site, I searched again and the panel looked gone. This is what I found and what I changed to get it back, now saying "Software developer".

What a knowledge panel actually is

You can't apply for a knowledge panel. Google shows one when it's confident that a name belongs to one specific entity, and it builds that confidence from sources that agree with each other: your website, its structured data, your profiles and, for many people, a Wikidata item. When those sources disagree, the confidence drops, and the panel can get vague, shrink or disappear.

So the question wasn't "what did Google break". It was "where do my own sources disagree?"

Three answers to one question

The first thing I checked was the most basic fact: what is my homepage?

• The site's canonical URL, Open Graph URL and JSON-LD all said https://voegele.dev.
• But voegele.dev redirected to www.voegele.dev, with a 307. That's a temporary redirect, so it tells Google the move might not stick.
• My Wikidata item listed https://www.voegele.dev as the official website.

So the page said "I live at the apex domain", the server said "not right now, go to www", and Wikidata said "www". The redesign had introduced the mismatch, and every signal pointing at me pointed at a slightly different place.

The fixes on the site

• One origin everywhere. I made https://www.voegele.dev the canonical origin: metadataBase, canonicals, og:url, the sitemap, robots.txt and every @id in the structured data.
• A permanent redirect. In Vercel, the apex domain now redirects to www with a 308 instead of a 307.
• A Person entity that links out. The site's JSON-LD describes me as a Person with my job and employer, and with sameAs links to GitHub, LinkedIn, Instagram and my Wikidata item. That tells Google those profiles all belong to the same person.
• The same facts as Wikidata. The birth date in the schema matches the one on Wikidata exactly, so the two sources can confirm each other.

{
  "@type": "Person",
  "@id": "https://www.voegele.dev/#person",
  "name": "Devin Vögele",
  "jobTitle": "Developer & Creative Technologist",
  "url": "https://www.voegele.dev",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://github.com/devin-voegele/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/devin-voegele-2a5989293",
    "https://www.instagram.com/devinvoe/",
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q137946248"
  ]
}

The fixes on Wikidata

Wikidata was where the "graphic designer" label came from. My item listed a motion graphics designer occupation. I removed it, kept software developer, and set plain descriptions: "Swiss software developer" in English and "Schweizer Softwareentwickler" in German. I also added my Instagram username and LinkedIn ID as identifiers, so those profiles are tied to the item from both directions.

One rule there: only add what you can back up with a source. Wikidata is public and edited by everyone, so made-up or promotional claims get removed, and they don't help anyway.

What happened next

Less than 17 hours after the last fix, the panel was back with the right label: "Software developer", plus my date of birth. That's fast, but Google wasn't building anything new: it already knew who I was and only had to correct the facts, and it reads Wikidata often. I can't prove which change did it, because Google doesn't tell you. Part of my panic was also self-inflicted: the panel looks quite different on mobile, and I compared a phone screenshot with an old desktop one. But the label changed because the sources changed, and that part isn't luck.

If your panel disappears or says the wrong thing

• Check that your site, its canonical tags and its redirects all agree on one URL, and that the redirect is permanent (301 or 308).
• Add Person structured data with sameAs links to the profiles that are really yours.
• If you have a Wikidata item, make it match your site, and remove anything outdated.
• Use the same name, job and bio on every profile.
• Request indexing for your homepage in Search Console, then wait. Changes take days to weeks, not hours.

This is the kind of work I now do for other people too. If your name or your business doesn't show up the way it should, have a look at my SEO services.