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What is Google authorship?

One way website owners are proving the quality of their content is by providing Google Authorship. This is a Google initiative that allows users to connect a Google+ profile to original content published by that user on the web using rich snippet code.

Having this code connecting authored content to your Google+ profile changes the way your blog post, article, etc. appears in Google search engine results.  Below is an example of rehab facility, Clarity Way, gave its company a face:

Google Authorship is a way to connect a piece of content to an established authority on the topic. As mentioned earlier, this is done using rich snippets, more specifically the “rel=author” tag.

Not only does it improve a page/sites chance of avoiding a Google Panda penalty by distinguishing itself as quality, but it also boosts the clickthrough rate of the post when it appears in the search engine results by up to 150%.

AuthorRank: how to acquire Google Authorship

AuthorRank is a new term that was created as a result of using Google Authorship. With AuthorRank, every author who writes content for the web is given a score about a topic area around which they regularly build content.

If an author has a higher AuthorRank, they have greater chance of acquiring Google Authorship on articles they publish and connect to their Google+ profile.

AuthorRank is positively affected by six main factors:

1. The author has a higher average PageRank for their content that is published on the web.
2. The author has a higher number of people in their Google+ circles.
3. The author posts at a higher frequency.
4. The author is also an authority (or “influencer”) across other social networks.
5. The author has more +1s, ‘Likes’, retweets and engagement across social networks.
6. The amount of commenting and social sharing from both the author’s Google+ page and where the content lives.

There are also ways to negatively impact AuthorRank:

1. ‘Spinning’ or repurposing already written content.
2. Publishing content that is poorly written or stuffed with keywords.
3. Submitting content to article directories or blog networks.

Many assume that AuthorRank is now an integrated part of Google’s ranking algorithm. When an author has a higher AuthorRank for a topic, Google will favor their published content in the search results. Google also uses AuthorRank to deemphasize low quality content by valuing established authors from spam.

The Google Authorship initiative is part of Google’s effort to increase the quality content ranking at the top of search results, devalue low quality content that has potential to not be original work, and encourage active participation in social channels.

How Google Authorship works

In order for an author to have an AuthorRank score, there are some steps that need to be taken:

1. The author needs to have a Google+ profile. This can be done on the Google+ site, where the user can either create a new profile or sign in with their Google account.
2. The Google+ profile needs to be filled out with detailed information on the author’s background, websites they contribute to or are connected to, etc. The profile is required to include a photograph of the author that uses a clear headshot.
3. On every Google+ profile, there is a section that displays articles and content that you have +1’d yourself. Make this public by going into edit mode, clicking the +1 tab, and making sure to check “show this tab on your profile.”
4. Add the website to the ‘Contributor to’ section in the ‘Edit Profile’ section. Click ‘Add Custom Link’ and include a descriptive label and the URL of the website or the specific blog page.
5. Link to the Google+ profile of the author on blog pages.

Using Justin Daniels’ Google+ profile as an example, you can see he contributes to and has presence on other various websites alongside Clarity Way.

Rich snippet code

With an author that has a completed Google+ profile, the correct rich snippet code still needs to be implemented.

Linking blog pages to a Google+ account

There are two ways to indicate to Google that a particular page has been authored by someone with a Google+ account.

The first way is to include a <link> tag in the page head.  The following code should be added to any page that has an author with a verified Google+ account: 

<head>

            <link rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/xxxxxxxxxx”>

</head>

The hypertext reference (href) should be the URL of the Google+ account for the page’s author.

Another method to connect a page to a Google+ account is to include a link to the author’s Google+ page on the page with the rel=author parameter.  The following code shows an example of this linking:

<div>

            <h1>Blog Title</h1>

            Blog Content

            <a href=”https://plus.google.com/xxxxxxxxxx?rel=author”>Written by author name</a>

</div>

When Google crawls a page, it will look for either the <link> tag or the link pointing to the author’s Google+ with the rel=author parameter.  Once this is set up, the author’s headshot will appear aside the page listing along with links to their Google+ profile and additional articles they have written. 

It is important to note that these methods are a suggestion and not a directive.  Google does not guarantee that the author information will appear in search engine result pages even if the preceding methods are implemented.

It’s the right thing for you

Google Authorship helps to positively influence AuthorRank, which maximizes the potential of articles, blog posts and other forms of content to rank in search engines.

As Google continues to emphasize quality content, AuthorRank will become more useful to establish a page’s authority. It is also an important step to maximizing the organic presence for a content focused website.

If you want to enhance the presentation of authored content in search results to improve clickthrough, Google Authorship is something you should consider for your website content strategy.