Google significantly lowered the qualification thresholds for search profiles, making a dedicated presence in search results available to many more brands and creators.
What changed
| Platform | Previously | Now |
|---|
| YouTube, Instagram, X | 100,000 | 35,000 |
| TikTok | 300,000 | 100,000 |
Crossing 35,000 subscribers or followers on any one of the three platforms now qualifies — roughly a third of the previous bar.
What a search profile does
Search profiles give brands and creators a centralized presence inside Google's search results, including:
- A header image
- Links to articles, videos and social posts
- A follow button that works directly from the listing
Google updated the presentation of search profiles in June, and has now lowered the entry requirements.
For a brand, this creates an area of the results page you control editorially — some influence over what appears on a branded search, plus the ability to collect follows without a site visit.
New Search Console reports
Google also launched new reports in Search Console providing more insight into the search terms people used to find content, along with ranking insights and search volume information.
Eligible brands and creators can set up their display at Google for Creators.
YouTube expands copyright notifications
Separately, YouTube is broadening its copyright violation alerts. Email notifications for copyright claims and removal requests, previously sent only to channel owners, will now go to all channel managers.
Rene Ritchie, YouTube's head of editorial, framed it as giving everyone responsible for a channel's content visibility into copyright restrictions, which should speed up remediation. For agency-run or contractor-edited channels, the operational impact is real: issues that affect monetization no longer wait on a single owner to notice.
What to check now
- Count followers across all three platforms. Many brands that gave up under the old 100,000 bar now qualify at 35,000.
- Set it up immediately if eligible. An uncontrolled area of your branded search result gets filled by something else.
- Audit channel manager accounts. With copyright alerts expanding, confirm the people actually operating the channel are registered as managers.
- Treat the follow button as a conversion point. Follows now happen in search without a site visit, so count it as a reach asset.
On the shift toward people being discovered before brands in search, see Your Channel Gets Searched Before Your Resume. For Google's changing position in the Korean market specifically, see Google Passes Naver in Korean MAU — but Naver Still Owns 3x the Time Spent.