For years, Google has described in various patents how information from different sources can be combined into a dynamic landing page. The goal is simple: users should receive the information they need as quickly as possible. Whether that information comes from a corporate website, a social media profile, or another platform is ultimately irrelevant.

This development has been visible for years in Google Business Profile. For many local businesses, the business profile has become more important than their own homepage. Opening hours, reviews, photos, posts, reservations, phone calls—all of this happens directly within Google's interface. In many cases, users never even leave Google.

Platform Properties continue this strategy consistently. Creators and brands can now access search performance data for their platform profiles directly within Search Console. In plain language, Google is officially acknowledging that a digital presence can now exist entirely within third-party platforms.

This raises the question: why are LinkedIn and Mastodon missing? There are three reasons.

Reason 1: Relevance in Search Results

Google prominently integrates social media content into Search and Google Discover primarily when it serves broad search intent or visual trends.

YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram now dominate the video and creator ecosystem. X continues to play a special role because of its real-time information about news and current events.

LinkedIn, by contrast, is primarily a B2B network focused on professional content. Such content plays a much smaller role in general web search. Mastodon, meanwhile, remains a niche platform with a comparatively small user base.

Reason 2: Creators Instead of Traditional Businesses

Platform Properties are clearly aimed at creators, influencers, and publishers—people who build their entire audience on digital platforms.

Only a few years ago, a corporate website was considered the indispensable center of a company's digital presence. Google is now signaling something different. What matters is no longer where content is published. What matters is whether it is relevant to users and visible within Google's ecosystems.

In practical terms, this means that for many businesses, Google Business Profile, YouTube channels, Instagram accounts, or TikTok profiles already perform a substantial share of the functions once reserved for corporate websites.

Reason 3: Technical Challenges and Walled Gardens

To integrate a platform into Search Console, Google needs two things: reliable technical verification and stable data exchange.

LinkedIn has long been regarded as a tightly controlled walled garden and allows only limited external API access. This makes deep integration considerably more difficult.

Mastodon faces a different challenge. The Fediverse consists of thousands of independent servers without centralized infrastructure. Imagine Google having to build standardized verification across every single instance. For centrally managed platforms, this is manageable. In the Fediverse, it becomes a massive undertaking.

The Bigger Strategic Shift

This is where all the pieces come together. The introduction of Platform Properties fits into a broader trend that has been unfolding for years:

• Google Business Profile already replaces much of the traditional corporate website for many local businesses.
• AI-generated search results increasingly provide answers directly within Google Search.
• Social media content is appearing more frequently directly in search results.
• Platform Properties make platform profiles measurable search assets for the first time.

This fundamentally changes the role of the website. It is no longer necessarily the primary entry point for customers. Instead, it becomes just one of several possible digital touchpoints.

However, this development has a downside. Anyone who shifts their entire digital presence to external platforms gives up control over their own content. As a result, power over information becomes concentrated in the hands of a small number of Big Tech companies. Google decides which content becomes visible, which data you are allowed to see, and under what conditions. If a platform changes its rules, algorithms, or pricing, you have little choice but to accept it. Your own website, by contrast, is the only place on the internet that truly belongs to you.

Digital sovereignty is not something you are given. It is something you must preserve.

Is the Threat to the Open Web Growing?

But the real message goes even further. The interesting question is not why LinkedIn or Mastodon are missing. Google is evolving from a search engine for websites into a search and discovery platform for digital identities. Increasingly, those identities no longer reside on independently owned domains. Instead, they exist on platforms controlled by major technology companies. What becomes visible there is no longer determined primarily by the content creators themselves, but by the platforms. As a result, the open web gradually loses one of its founding principles: content that is distributed, independent, and accessible to everyone.