Google is working on fixing an issue where some searchers are seeing squished images within the Google Search knowledge panels. I personally cannot replicate this but it seems to be happening for a number of searchers. Google confirmed a fix for this should be rolling out sometime tonight.
Alex Greenland first notified me of this issue on Friday, he wrote on X, "Google Search has had a problem with the aspect ratio of knowledge graph images for the past week, squashing many celebrities' faces."
He shared these images:
Here are those posts:
looks related to the change to support narrow crops that focus on faces pic.twitter.com/7OIuESdQGA
— Alex Greenland (@ajrgd) January 2, 2026
I asked Rajan Patel, the VP, Engineering for Search at Google, and he replied, "Definitely seems like an issue, will forward to the team." That was on Friday and the issue was still present on Sunday.
Definitely seems like an issue, will forward to the team.
— Rajan Patel (@rajanpatel) January 2, 2026
Like I said, I am not experiencing the issue myself but some are:
still bad for me, probably a/b testing. can you scroll right for the other kg images and screenshot? (want to see if you've got this crop experiment) pic.twitter.com/Zw4aePajxh
— Alex Greenland (@ajrgd) January 2, 2026
Rajan Patel added early this morning/last night, "Team found the issue and is shipping a fix tonight. Should be live by tomorrow evening. Thanks for the report."
Team found the issue and is shipping a fix tonight. Should be live by tomorrow evening. Thanks for the report.
— Rajan Patel (@rajanpatel) January 5, 2026
Forum discussion at X.
