Google has lowered the follower requirement for a Google Search profile from 100,000 to 35,000 on YouTube, Instagram and X, and from 300,000 to 100,000 on TikTok. Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, announced the change on X on 13 August 2026, and Search Engine Roundtable reported it the same day.
The feature itself has not changed. What changed is who can get in. A creator or publisher who is approved gets a dedicated space in Search that pulls their website, social accounts, recent posts, videos and custom links into a single profile-style result.
What Robby Stein announced on 13 August 2026
Robby Stein, who is VP of Product for Google Search, posted on X on 13 August 2026 that Google had cut the follower requirement for Search profiles. Search Engine Roundtable covered the announcement the same day.
The announcement was about eligibility only. Nothing in the reporting describes a change to what a profile contains, how it is displayed, or how a creator applies. The gate moved. The thing behind the gate stayed where it was.
Google also said there is more to come for creator tools in Search. No timeline was attached to that, and no further country expansion was announced alongside the threshold cut.
The new numbers, platform by platform
Four platforms carry a follower requirement, and the announcement moved all four. The table below sets out the old and new figures as reported on 13 August 2026.
| Platform | Old requirement | New requirement |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 100,000 followers | 35,000 followers |
| 100,000 followers | 35,000 followers | |
| X | 100,000 followers | 35,000 followers |
| TikTok | 300,000 followers | 100,000 followers |
Two things fall out of those numbers on arithmetic alone. The cut on YouTube, Instagram and X is 65 percent of the old bar. And TikTok's new requirement of 100,000 is exactly the old requirement on the other three platforms, which means TikTok remains the hardest route in by a factor of roughly three.
What a Google Search profile actually is
Search profiles launched in June 2026. An approved creator or publisher gets a dedicated space inside Google Search that consolidates their website, their social accounts, their recent posts, their videos and a set of custom links into one profile-style result.
The word consolidating is doing the work in that description. A profile is not a new ranking position for a page. It is a container that collects properties a creator already owns and presents them together when someone searches for that creator. The website is in there, but so are the social accounts, and so is the recent activity on them.
Judged by what the container holds, the feature behaves as a branded search surface. That is an inference from the listed components, not a statement from the source about ranking effects, and the reporting makes no claim about what a profile does to a creator's other results.
Where the feature is available, officially and unofficially
This is the part that keeps the story from being a straightforward opportunity. Google's official support documentation still lists Search profiles as available in the United States only. Profiles have nonetheless been observed live in Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Spain and France, and reportedly in Japan.
The word reportedly is worth keeping attached to Japan. Five of those six countries are described as observed sightings, and Japan sits one step further back in the chain of evidence. Neither category is the same as Google having announced availability there.
So there are two facts sitting next to each other. The documentation says United States. The observations say six other countries. Google has not published anything reconciling the two, and the 13 August 2026 announcement addressed follower counts rather than geography. Anyone outside the United States is working from sightings, not from a published availability list.
Why a threshold cut is a different kind of news than a launch
A launch tells you a feature exists. A threshold cut two months after launch tells you something about how the feature is being run. Search profiles launched in June 2026 and the requirement moved in August 2026, which is a short interval by the standards of Google feature eligibility changes.
What that interval means is not stated anywhere in the reporting, and it would be easy to over-read. The honest version is narrow. The bar moved down. It moved on all four platforms at once. And it moved within about two months of launch. Google said there is more to come for creator tools in Search without saying what or when.
The practical consequence for anyone tracking this is that eligibility is a moving figure. A creator who was 40,000 followers short of the old bar in July 2026 is eligible on the new numbers in August 2026 without having gained a single follower.
What this means for Thai marketers and creators
Thailand has a deep mid-tier creator layer, and 35,000 is the range where a large number of Thai YouTube, Instagram and X accounts actually sit. The old bar of 100,000 excluded most of that layer. The new one does not. On the numbers alone, a great many more Thai accounts are now inside the follower requirement than were inside it a week ago.
The complication is geography. The feature is still documented as United States only, and Thailand is not among the countries where profiles have been observed. So the position for a Thai creator or a Thai brand with a creator arm is that the follower gate has opened while the country gate has not been confirmed as open. Those are separate conditions, and clearing one does not clear the other.
So the sensible move is preparation, not application. Checking eligibility against the new numbers and getting profile assets in order costs little. Announcing to a client that a Search profile is now available in Thailand would be wrong, because nothing published says that. Brands that treat their branded search results as an owned surface will already have most of the underlying work done, and this fits alongside the ordinary SEO work of controlling what appears when someone searches your name.
What to prepare now
None of the following depends on Thailand becoming eligible. All of it is work that pays off on branded search whether or not a profile ever appears.
- Check follower counts on YouTube, Instagram, X and TikTok against the new figures, and note which accounts clear 35,000 and which clear 100,000.
- Decide which single URL is the canonical website for the creator or brand. A profile consolidates a website, so it should be obvious which one that is.
- Audit which social accounts you would want consolidated and which you would not. Dormant accounts on a profile are visible in a way they are not today.
- Keep recent posts and videos current on the accounts that would feed the profile, since recent activity is part of what a profile surfaces.
- Decide what a set of custom links should point at. This is the one component fully under a creator's control, and it is the place a profile can carry commercial intent.
- Keep the name and handle consistent across platforms, so the accounts belonging to one creator are identifiable as one creator.
For brands rather than individual creators, the same list applies with one addition: the branded search result you already have is the thing a profile would sit alongside, so the local business information, the site, and the social presence should agree with each other. That overlaps heavily with ordinary local SEO hygiene and is worth doing on its own merits.
What the source did not report
Three questions are unanswered by the 13 August 2026 reporting, and guessing at them would be worse than saying so.
The source did not say when or whether Thailand gets Search profiles. No country expansion timeline was given, and Thailand is not among the countries where profiles have been observed. The source did not say how long approval takes, so the gap between meeting the follower requirement and having a profile appear is unknown. And the source did not say whether follower counts are verified across platforms in aggregate or on a single platform, which matters a great deal for a creator sitting at 20,000 on three platforms instead of 35,000 on one.
That last one is the most consequential unknown for mid-tier accounts, and it is the one most likely to be answered by documentation, not by an announcement.
Frequently asked questions
What is the new follower requirement for a Google Search profile?
35,000 followers on YouTube, Instagram or X, and 100,000 on TikTok, announced by Robby Stein of Google on 13 August 2026. The previous figures were 100,000 on the first three platforms and 300,000 on TikTok.
Can creators in Thailand get a Google Search profile?
The source did not say. Google's official documentation still lists the feature as United States only, and Thailand is not among the countries where profiles have been observed live, so there is no published basis for saying Thai creators are eligible.
Which countries have Search profiles been seen in?
Beyond the United States, profiles have been observed live in Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Spain and France, and reportedly in Japan. Google's support documentation still lists the feature as United States only, so those are sightings, not announced availability.
How long does approval take once you meet the follower requirement?
The source did not say. No approval timeline was reported on 13 August 2026, and Google has not published one alongside the threshold change.
Do follower counts have to be on one platform or can they be combined?
The source did not say. Whether Google verifies the requirement across platforms in aggregate or on a single platform was not addressed in the reporting, which leaves it open for creators with a similar audience spread across several accounts.
What appears inside a Google Search profile?
A profile consolidates the creator's website, social accounts, recent posts, videos and custom links into a single profile-style result in Search. The feature launched in June 2026 and the 13 August 2026 announcement changed eligibility, not the contents.
If your brand or your creator partners sit anywhere near the new numbers, the useful thing to do this month is get the assets and the branded search result in order, then watch the country list. If you want that handled as part of your search presence, that is the kind of work our SEO team takes on.
