Building a portfolio site is step one. Getting Google to actually index it correctly and show it when people search your name — that's the harder part. Here's exactly what I did to get srikanthbadavath.com indexed, what broke, and how I fixed it.

Step 1: Sitemap Done Right

The first mistake most people make is putting anchor URLs like /#about or /#skills in their sitemap. Google can't index anchors as separate pages — it just crawls the base URL. I had 11 URLs in my sitemap, 7 of which were anchors. Google flagged every single one as "Discovered — not indexed."

The fix: only list real, crawlable pages in your sitemap. For a single-page portfolio, that usually means just your homepage, any sub-pages like /experience/ or /blog/, and any important PDFs.

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://srikanthbadavath.com/</loc>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://srikanthbadavath.com/blog/</loc>
    <priority>0.85</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Step 2: Canonical Tags

Every page needs a canonical tag pointing to its own URL. This tells Google which version of a URL is the "official" one, preventing duplicate content issues. I had an old resume PDF still accessible at a dead URL — Google flagged it as a "Duplicate without user-selected canonical." The fix was deleting the old file and adding canonical tags to every page.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://srikanthbadavath.com/" />

Step 3: Schema.org Person Markup

Schema markup is structured data that tells Google exactly who you are. Adding a Person schema with your name, job title, university, credentials, and social links dramatically improves how Google understands your identity. This is the foundation for a Knowledge Panel.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Person",
  "name": "Badavath Srikanth",
  "url": "https://srikanthbadavath.com/",
  "jobTitle": "Data Scientist",
  "alumniOf": { "@type": "CollegeOrUniversity", "name": "Virginia Tech" },
  "sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/badavathsrikanth/"]
}
</script>

Step 4: Open Graph and Twitter Cards

These meta tags control how your site looks when shared on LinkedIn, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Add a proper title, description, and image so your portfolio preview doesn't look like a blank card.

Step 5: Wikidata

Having a Wikidata entry (Q134984201 in my case) and linking it with <link rel="me"> on your site helps Google connect your site to your identity graph. Add reference URLs (like your IEEE paper) to Wikidata entries for your university to strengthen the connection.

Step 6: Get Google Search Console Set Up

Submit your sitemap, monitor coverage errors, and use "URL Inspection" to request indexing for each page. Don't assume Google will find your pages automatically — especially for new domains.

Results

After these fixes: sitemap went from 11 broken URLs to 5 clean ones, all indexing errors resolved, and the portfolio now appears correctly in search results for "Srikanth Badavath" and "Badavath Srikanth."