Google has removed the Follow button from desktop search results, according to tests and user reports confirmed on September 25, 2026. The button, which appears in knowledge panels and lets users follow a "Search profile" of a publisher, creator, or brand, still works on the mobile version of Google Search.

Damien Andell reported the change first on X, writing: "Google has removed the follow button on Google search desktop, still available on mobile on Knowledge panels, which allowed users to follow the 'search profile' of a publisher or creator." An independent check of the live results confirmed his finding: searching for a person with a Search profile on desktop shows the "Search profile" label in the knowledge panel, but no Follow option. The same search on mobile still displays the Follow button.

What the Follow button does

Google's Search profiles feature lets users subscribe to entities — individual creators, publishers, and brands — directly from the results page. Following a profile surfaces content from that entity in the user's Google Discover feed. For publishers and creators, the Follow button has been one of the few explicit subscription mechanics Google offers outside of RSS-style feeds tied to Google Reader's successors and the newer Follow feature in Search.

The desktop removal cuts off one of the two main discovery surfaces for this subscription behavior. Mobile remains the sole entry point for new followers.

Confirmed versus unconfirmed

Two things are confirmed: the Follow button is absent from desktop knowledge panels in testing, and it remains present on mobile. Andell's post and the independent verification establish both facts through direct observation.

What remains speculation is the cause. Google has not issued a statement on the change, and there is no confirmation whether the desktop removal is a permanent deprecation, a staged rollout of a redesigned panel, a bug, or a quiet signal that Google is narrowing the Search profiles feature toward mobile-only distribution. Tool-driven or crawl-based evidence does not exist for this kind of UI change, so observation is the only signal available — and Google frequently tests, reverts, and re-ships interface elements without announcement.

Impact by site type

The change primarily affects publishers, creators, and personal brands that have invested in building a Search profile audience. For these entities, desktop traffic historically converts differently than mobile: readers arriving from desktop searches skew toward research-heavy and professional contexts. Losing the desktop Follow button removes a low-friction acquisition channel for exactly that audience segment.

E-commerce and local business sites see little direct impact, since Search profiles and the Follow mechanic target individual and publisher entities rather than product or local knowledge panels.

For creators who point audiences to their Google Search profile — some newsletters and media kits include "Follow me on Google" prompts — the instruction now only works reliably for users on mobile devices.

Context: the quiet life of Search profiles

Google's follow functionality has a history of partial rollouts and quiet retreats. The feature has never carried the visibility of Google's core systems like AI Overviews or core updates, and Google rarely announces changes to it. That makes surface-level disappearances like this one hard to interpret: they can precede full removal, or they can be transient tests that return within weeks.

The asymmetry between desktop and mobile also fits a broader pattern in Google's product decisions. Discover, the primary consumption surface for followed profiles, is a mobile-only product. If Google is consolidating the follow funnel where the downstream feed actually lives, the desktop removal would be a logical, deliberate step rather than a regression.

What to monitor

Watch three signals in the coming weeks: whether the desktop Follow button returns (suggesting a test or bug), whether Google removes it from mobile as well (suggesting full deprecation of Search profiles), and whether Google publishes any statement on the Search profiles feature. Creators who rely on the feature should also track follower growth rates by device if Google's profile analytics expose that breakdown — a sustained desktop-driven decline would confirm the acquisition loss is real rather than cosmetic.