Google added a documentation page on September 16 called “Add a Search profile badge to your website.” The same day, according to the trade press, the follower threshold to claim a Search profile came down to 10,000. I do not have 10,000 followers anywhere. I am writing this down anyway, because the mechanics are simple and the day I qualify I want to already know them.

What a Search profile is

Google's one-line version:

A Search profile brings together your content from across the web and social platforms into a single destination on Google.

It is a page at profile.google.com/@yourname that pulls in your site and your accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, and Facebook. People can follow it from Google.

The consequence of being followed is the part that matters:

it makes your content that's linked on your Search profile … more likely to appear for your audience on Google Discover.

So this is a Discover lever, and a direct one. Discover has never had a subscribe button. This is the closest thing to one, and Google is letting you put it on your own site.

The badge

Two options, both plain HTML.

The image badge, using Google's downloadable assets:

<a href="https://profile.google.com/@example" aria-label="Find us on Google Search">
  <img src="/path/to/google-search-badge.svg" alt="Google Search">
</a>

Or a text link, for a byline or a bio:

<a href="https://profile.google.com/@example">Find us on Google Search</a>

No script. No embed. A link to your profile URL, with or without Google's icon.

The brand rules

If you use the official assets: do not stretch, distort, rotate, or recolor the G or the button. Keep touch targets at 48 by 48 dp on Android and 44 by 44 pixels on iOS and the web. That second rule is an accessibility rule wearing a brand-guideline coat, and it is a good one regardless.

Where it would go on this site

The footer, next to the newsletter form. And in the byline block on each article, as the text version, because that is where a reader who just finished a post is deciding whether they want more.

The site already has a place in its config for social handles, and the badge URL would live there too, so the footer and the byline read from one value. That is the same pattern as everything else here: one source, many renderings.

Why I do not have one

The threshold. The reporting I have seen says 10,000 followers on at least one connected platform, and Google's page does not state a number at all, which usually means the number is enforced at claim time and can move. My audience is smaller than that, spread across a site and a newsletter, and neither of those is a platform the profile counts.

That makes this the rare Google feature where the honest advice is: build the audience first, on a platform Google can see, and the badge is a five-minute job afterward. I wrote about the unpredictability of Discover in Discover wants a 1200-pixel image. A follow button is the first thing Google has offered that makes Discover slightly less unpredictable, for the people who already have a following. For everyone else it is a reason to have one.

Source: Google Search Central, “Add a Search profile badge to your website,” last updated September 16, 2026.