A few weeks ago, Google launched a way to verify your Google Profile with them and ultimately show up in the Google results. In fact, Google offered free business cards with your Google Profile information on it. You can get those business cards over here.
I received my business cards last Thursday. But to my surprise, they didn't work! By didn't work, I meant, that if you typed in barry schwartz into Google, my Google Profile did not show up. The whole purpose of the Google Profile business cards was to give people a way to look you up by Googling your name. But in this case, it didn't exactly work.
Why? Didn't my profile show up. Well, Joe Kraus of Google (founder of Excite, JotSpot, etc) commented at my personal blog to inform me that my profile may have hit the celebrity filter. Joe said:
Hey Barry. My name is Joe Kraus and I'm the PM Director for Google Profiles. We're looking into it. There's a possibility your name is getting caught in our celebrity filters but we'll know more soon. Sorry for the hassle.
Am I a celebrity? I doubt it. But I suspect that maybe the famous psychologist/professor is a quasi-celebrity.
In fact, Kaila noticed that if you search for barry swartz, a misspelling of my name, my Google Profile does show:
So maybe Google should of sent me the business cards with the misspelling? I assume Google might pull the celebrity filter from my name, at least I hope so. It does make sense for names like Michael Jordan, Barack Obama, Britney Spears and so on, but I am not sure my name (even for the professor) deserves the "celebrity status."
So this has less to do with the name being common and more about the name hitting a possible filter, I think.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
