This coming Tuesday, July 20, 2021, Google will be discontinuing the ability for those with verified knowledge panels to use Google Posts. To be clear, this does not impact the local Google Posts you manage within Google My Business, but rather only impacts the verified knowledge panels.
The notice. Google has been emailing those who have used this feature in the past to tell them that starting on July 20, 2021 that “you will no longer be able to create new posts via Posts on Google or use the authoring tool to make updates to the knowledge panel.” Google say you can download your posts and save it locally if you want.
Here is a screenshot of this notice from Lily Ray:
What is looks like. Here is a screenshot from Jason Barnard oh how it currently functions:
History. In 2017, Google began allowing some sports teams to add Posts to their knowledge panels. This then added support for this to musicians and artists in 2018. And then in 2018 Google added verification for knowledge panels, it opened up more.
Google My Business. As a reminder, this is separate from how Google Posts work within Google My Business. Google Posts do not seem to be going away for local business panels.
Why we care. If you used Google Posts in these knowledge panels to communicate to searchers about updates, changes or new events, you should know it is being discontinued. Google is also giving you only 30-days to download your Google Posts history, so if you want to save it, make sure to download the data.
About The Author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.