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NOTE

On Gina’s profile, and on the profiles of other folks of note, the gray checkmark next to her name (circled here) means that Google “verified” her name, giving you and others a thumbs-up that this person is, in fact, using her real name and is the person most people know by that name. (If you hover your cursor over the checkmark, it expands to read “verified name.”) Who gets a verification badge from Google? Celebrities, public figures, and people added to an especially large number of circles. So keep an eye out for these checkmarks when you’re looking for a profile that belongs to your favorite actor, musician, or other notable person.

How does Google verify that the Dolly Parton on Google+ is really the country music legend? They’re not telling. Gina Trapani notes that Google didn’t email, call, or contact her to verify her account, so the process remains a mystery. But unless you become a celebrity, you probably won’t get verified by Google+.

If you don’t see the person you’re looking for, don’t give up just yet. In the Search Google+ box that’s at the top of every Google+ screen, type the person’s name. A drop-down list appears with “Search Google+ for X” as the first option, followed by the same profile pictures and names that showed up when you used the “Type a name” box. Below that is a section titled “Searches” that contains some suggestions of search terms that might help you find the person you’re after.

Clicking one of these phrases or the “Search Google+ for X” option makes Google+ search its entire network, not just its database of names. So if someone mentioned the person you’re looking for in a post, or they were cited in a photo, or they show up anywhere else, you might see them in these search results. If the results include the person you’re looking for, you can click her name or photo to view her profile.

Putting People in Circles

Now that you’ve found someone you want to put in one (or more) of your circles, adding that person to a circle is easy. Google+ gives you a few ways to do this, as the following sections explain.

From a profile page

If someone’s not in one of your circles yet, at the top right of his profile page you’ll see a big red “Add to circles” button, as shown here. When you point to it with your cursor, Google+ displays a list of your existing circles. (This list probably only includes the four pre-fab ones you read about on How Circles Work, but you’ll learn how to create your own on Creating Circles.) To add someone to one of these circles, just click the name of the one you want to add him to. Simple, huh?

NOTE

After you add someone to a circle, you may see the “What happens when you add someone to a circle?” message box. Click “Okay, got it” to dismiss the box, or click the blue Change link to adjust the setting that lets people viewing your profile to see who’s in your circles (Editing Your Profile has the details).

From the Circles page

You can also add people to circles by heading to the Circles page shown on Adding People to Circles; click the Circles button at the top of any Google+ page to get there. If there are a bunch of boxes in the middle of the screen with people’s names (and maybe photos) on them, you can add one of those people to an existing circle simply by dragging his box onto one of the blue circles at the bottom of the page. (The circle expands so you can tell that it’s selected and, if there are any people already in it, you see their profile pictures around the edge.) Let go of your mouse button to add him to that circle.

TIP

Before adding someone to a circle, it doesn’t hurt to double-click his name box to view his profile just to make extra sure you know him.

See a bunch of people you want to add to the same circle? Click one person’s name box, and then simply click another, and another, and so on. Each box you click turns blue to indicate that it’s selected.

Another way to select multiple people is to click somewhere between the boxes in the middle of the Circles page and then