How Erik Lindholm Took Back His Online Identity from Google and AI
TL;DR A convicted fraudster’s profile cost Erik more than €500,000 in lost deals. Erik Lindholm, a corporate tax attorney in Stockholm, lost control of his online narrative when Google pinned his name to the wrong person - a convicted tax criminal from another country.
The fraudster’s Knowledge Panel dominated Erik’s Google results. Erik didn’t panic. He followed the core principles of The Kalicube Process™, built a structured Entity Home, cleaned up his digital footprint, and flipped the result in six months. By month ten, his pipeline had fully recovered, and the total revenue impact hit €1,188,000.
The problem Erik Lindholm faced: A respected name, hijacked by a mistaken identity
Erik had built a strong reputation across the Nordics. Trusted by multinationals, respected by peers, a fixture on expert panels in corporate law. A professional with visibility, track record, and credibility. And then, suddenly, it all stopped working. Google made one wrong connection - and it unraveled everything.
The moment it became clear: “We Googled you”
Referrals dried up. Warm leads cooled. Calls slowed, then stopped altogether. Silence spread. And then came the email - the one line that said what no one else had: “We Googled you. The stories… we just couldn’t take the risk.”
That one sentence made everything clear. The deals weren’t falling through because of pricing, timing, or competition. They were collapsing under mistrust triggered by something as simple as a Google search.
What triggered the loss of trust: A Knowledge Panel that wasn’t his
Google had created a Knowledge Panel. The problem? It wasn’t Erik’s. It featured another Erik Lindholm - a convicted tax fraudster. Different face, different country, but the same name. No context, no clarification, no disclaimers. Just a photo, a criminal history, and a headline. And it was sitting in position one on the SERP every time someone searched «Erik Lindholm.»
Google served the wrong Erik Lindholm - and “our Erik Lindholm” paid the price.
The cost of confusion: €540,000 in vanished contracts
In the 90 days that followed, three major client engagements dissolved with no warning. These were deals that had progressed far down the funnel. Suddenly, nothing. No replies. No follow-ups. Not a single explanation. But the pattern was obvious - and painful. Over €540,000 in dropped or indefinitely delayed contracts. Deals that didn’t fall through - they vanished.
When AI repeated the mistake, trust disappeared quietly
Behind the scenes, clients were doing due diligence. The kind of diligence every serious buyer does today. They weren’t seeing Erik’s credentials. They were seeing a Knowledge Panel with the word “fraud” and a face that wasn’t his. ChatGPT couldn’t tell the difference either. AI summaries echoed the confusion. So prospects walked - quietly and completely.
The solution Erik took: He used The Kalicube Process to rebuild digital trust from the ground up
Erik took action. He didn’t rebrand, change his name, or try to cover things up. He made a different decision: he took control. He started with what most professionals overlook - a structured Entity Home. Not just a site, but a site built for machines. He rewrote his About page from scratch. Filled in timeline gaps. Sourced citations that reinforced authority. Added schema. Removed mixed signals.
He didn’t reinvent himself. He rewired how machines understood him.
At first, nothing moved. Google continued showing the wrong Knowledge Panel. But Erik stayed the course. He used The Kalicube Process to make sense of the chaos: structured content, consistent profiles, authoritative corroboration. And by month six, the algorithm updated. The old panel disappeared. The new one appeared - his photo, his description, his credentials. Same space. New face. His face.
The extra step: Making sure every corner of the internet matched
The work didn’t stop there. With help from his assistant, Erik got methodical. He reviewed and updated every directory entry. Rewrote old bylines. Synced professional profiles across legal associations, speaker bureaus, and corporate registries. Submitted correction requests. Standardised legal listings. Deleted duplicate or outdated pages.
This wasn’t PR or branding fluff - it was digital compliance at scale
The outcome Erik achieved: The machines got it right - and stayed right
The ripple effects took time, but they came. Bing corrected its Knowledge Panel by month seven. By month eight, ChatGPT and Perplexity stopped hallucinating misinformation and began describing him accurately. The fraudster disappeared from the conversation. Erik’s narrative took root across every platform that mattered.
The business and personal benefits Erik gained: €1.18M in total recovery - and full control restored
By month ten, his pipeline was full again. Two of the three major clients who had quietly walked away came back to the table. Together, they accounted for €428,000 in recovered contracts.
But that wasn’t all. With the narrative now correct, Google and AI began sending the right signals and amplified his presence. Fresh leads started converting. New referrals rolled in. By the end of the year, he had added €760,000 in new revenue. Total recovery: €1,188,000.
TL;DR Google showed the wrong Erik Lindholm - and it cost “our Erik Lindholm” hundreds of thousands. He didn’t disappear. He didn’t explain. He didn’t fight. He structured. He clarified. He corrected. “Our” Erik followed The Kalicube Process, and in under a year, reclaimed his identity and recovered over €1.1 million in lost and missed business.
Disclaimer: This is a fictionalized but entirely realistic story based on more than a decade of client work at Kalicube - stories of real entrepreneurs who reshaped how Google and AI understood them using The Kalicube Process.
