A real example: on 1 November 2026, the first 10 Google results in Portugal for "Emanuel Luís" were social profiles of other people, and a web-searching AI answered that several people share the name. The author of this guide appeared in neither.
Why it happens
Google ranks pages, not people. For a name many people share, the pages with the most signals win, usually social networks. AI assistants do the same with the sources they find and, without a source that resolves the ambiguity, say they don't know or mix people up.
Create a source that says who you are
This has the most effect: a page about you on a site you control that a search engine can use as a reference.
- The name you use in public as the main title, with variations (full name, name with surnames) in the text.
- An identifying sentence at the top: profession, location and what you do.
- Photo, a fact sheet with public details, and links to the profiles you keep.
- ProfilePage structured data with the person, alternate names and sameAs links.
Emanuel Luís's page on this site is an example of the format.
Align your profiles
Every profile you keep should use the same form of your name, the same photo and the same short description, and link to your main page. Old profiles with a different name, photo or profession confuse more than they help: update or close them.
Measure the right searches
With a very common name, ranking first for the bare name may not be realistic. What counts is the search a client actually makes.
- Name plus profession ("[name] architect").
- Name plus city ("[name] Lisbon").
- Name plus company or product.
- The question "who is [name]?" in an AI assistant with web search.