What Author Rank Is
If you're like me and you have your finger on Google’s pulse on a daily basis, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Author Rank. However, I honestly don’t think it’s received its due attention and if you were AFK for a few days or don’t have the option to be “jacked into the feed”, you may have missed it entirely.
Over seven years ago (in August of 2005), Google filed a patent for “Agent Rank” which was later masterfully decoded by Bill Slawski. In the patent, Googler David Minogue references ranking “agents” and using the reception of the content they create and their interactions as a factor in determining their rank. The patent suggests that more well-received and popular “agents” could have their associated content rank higher than unsigned content or the content of other less-authoritative “agents”.
Nothing much happened with Agent Rank after that because the idea of ranking “agents” is dependent on being able to identify them in the first place. No great system for claiming an online identify really existed back then; I wouldn’t call W3C’s XML-signature syntax or other digital signature protocol an ideal solution.
Still, ranking agents remained a goal for Google. In 2011, Eric Schmidt expressed that Google still had a desire and need to identify agents in order to improve search quality, stating “it would be useful if we had strong identity so we could weed (spammers) out.”
Literally the following month (September 2011), Google filed a continuation patent referencing a “portable identity platform” which sounds a whole lot like Google+. Profiles on Google+ make an infinitely easier digital signature system than anything that’s come before and, with the rollout of Google Authorship (tying a Google+ profile to pieces of content), it really sounds like that’s what we’re looking at here.
So now Google can start attributing content to specific “agents” and doing just what they set out to do in 2005: rank them.
As early as February of this year, the term “Author Rank” started to surface in the industry. AJ Kohn wrote a great post on Author Rank and speculated that this development could change the search game as we know it. He also stated that it would be “bigger than Panda and Penguin combined”.
Author Rank, of course, wouldn’t be a replacement for PageRank, but would be used to inform PageRank, therefore enabling Google to rank high-quality content more appropriately. I think AJ’s right on the money and that it’s not a matter of if Google rolls out Author Rank, but when.
In Google’s never-ending mission to surface high quality, trustworthy content for their searchers, Author Rank is really the next big step. After more than seven years, I believe they are just about ready to implement it.
Why You Need to Be Ready
I’m certain that Google is going to begin incorporating Author Rank into their ranking algorithm in the not-too-distant future. I’d put good money on it. All the signs point to it: Google’s emphasis on social, Google Authorship, their ongoing efforts to measure site trust, and their progressive devaluation of raw links as a ranking factor. People want to read content written by credible and knowledgeable people and using Author Rank as a major part of their search algorithm just makes sense.
How Long Do We Have?
That’s what we, as SEOs, want to know, right? How long do we have before we need to start worrying about building our own Author Rank or working on it for our clients?
Stop thinking like that.
It doesn’t matter when it’s coming because once it does, it’ll be too late. Now I’m not saying that the launch of Author Rank is going to nuke site traffic like Panda, but the impact will be huge. While the rollout of Author Rank obviously won’t be an algorithmic penalty, sites that have been prepping and carefully building Author Rank for their site contributors are going to have a major advantage. It may as well be a penalty against the sites and brands that have done nothing to prepare.
The fact is, we have just as long as it takes Google to effectively measure Author Rank and decide they can rely on it. That could happen tomorrow or it could happen in two years. We don’t know. So let’s all start working on building Author Rank today.
What Signals Will Factor Into Author Rank?
Google considers over 200 ranking factors when determining where our sites rank in organic search, so it’s safe to say that they’ll be using plenty of signals to calculate Author Rank. Here’s my shortlist of factors that Google is likely to use in their calculation:
- The average PageRank of an author’s content.
- The average number of +1s and Google+ shares the author’s content receives.
- The number of Google+ circles an author is in.
- Reciprocal connections to other high Author Rank authors.
- The number and authority of sites an author’s content has been published to.
- The engagement level of an author’s native Google+ content (i.e., posts to Google+).
- The level of on-site engagement for an author’s content (i.e., comments and author’s responses to comments)
- Outside authority indicators (e.g., the presence of a Wikipedia page).
- YouTube subscribers and/or engagement on authored videos (speculation: multiple-attribution author markup for YouTube videos coming soon).
- Any number of importance/authority metrics on social networks that Google deems trustworthy enough (Twitter, Quora, LinkedIn, SlideShare, etc.).
- Real world authority indicators like published works on Google Books or Google Scholar.
How to Start Building Your Author Rank, Today.
Building your AuthorRank (or consulting with clients to build it) is easy. It’s like Wil Reynolds’s concept of doing #RCS, just for people. Seems logical enough to call it #RPS: Real People $h!t.
Sweet acronyms aside, what do we actually have to do? Here’s how we start building AuthorRank…
Get Down with Authorship
First of all, you’ll need to set up Google Authorship. Aside from getting that sweet author rich snippet in search results, setting this up will give Google exactly what they need to assign you an initial Author Rank: a tie between your online identity and the content you’re creating.
Don’t Be Lazy (or forgetful)
Once you set up Google Authorship, go and track down all the (quality) content you’ve created on the web and make sure your rich snippet markup is correct by using the Rich Snippet Testing Tool. You don’t want to run the risk of knockout content you’ve created not being factored into your Author Rank.
Continue (or Start) Writing Killer Content
If you’re working on building your own Author Rank, this one is easy. Career SEOs have a vested interest putting out killer content. At least, I hope we all have a desire to:
- Create content that demonstrates our expertise.
- Help improve the reputation, and demonstrate the value, of our field.
- Help other SEOs by sharing knowledge.
If you’re consulting to help another organization with AuthorRank, it’s a bit trickier. Still, no matter what the industry, there’s always an opportunity for a brand to provide content that is relevant and valuable.
Selling Brands on Individuality
If you’re a consultant working with a medium or large brand and you’re hoping to get a head start on Author Rank, you may have a tough road ahead. It can be difficult to get a CEO or head of marketing to highlight their people when they’re concerned about what that will do to the brand. I’ve had clients who’ve been adamantly opposed to letting their employees create content and be a visible part of the company and I’ve had clients who were absolutely stoked to have that opportunity. It really depends on company culture and there will be some companies who may never accept the very cornerstone of AuthorRank. You may want to hire Wil to fly out and explain #RCS to them.
Can We Get To the Good Part?
We’ve covered all the prerequisites at this point, so yes, we can. Here are some strategic ways you can work on building Author Rank right now. I’ll use the “you’re the one doing it” point of view, but you can apply the concepts to any setting.
Create Content That’s Worth Sharing
It’s just like what we’re doing now. If you’ve been following what’s going down in the inbound industry (particularly, SEOmoz), you know that the definition of link building is slowly, but steadily, changing to “content marketing”. It’s all about creating content your audience cares about. It’s all about creating resources that will help them. It’s all about creating things that they’d actually want to share on their own.
Those concepts are tantamount to content marketing and they’re even more important for Author Rank. If you’re tying your author identity to content you’ve created just for the sake of creating content or solely for “earning” links, you’re going to be in trouble. Here are a few things that are certain to destroy your Author Rank as badly as Penguin destroyed sites with questionable backlink profiles:
- Publishing content on blog networks.
- Guest posting through guest blogging communities (of course, there are exceptions).
- Writing content that’s keyword-stuffed or full of grammatical errors.
- Submitting content to article directories.
- Spinning articles.
Instead, create content that people will want to share on their own because they are actually interested in it. Only post content to the best outlets available to you (see “Get Out There” below).
Specialize
AuthorRank will be much more variable than PageRank in that you can earn a different Author Rank in different topic areas. Determine what you’re good at/passionate about and create great content in that area. Sure, you can go crazy with different topics but your Author Rank will probably end up being fairly weak in a lot of different topics instead of strong in one.
Use Google+, Constantly
If any of you don’t like Google+, too bad. Google is going to use your “in circles” count to determine your Author Rank. That means you need to make sure people have a reason to follow you. A few quick tips:
- Post updates multiple times a day. Shoot for 5-7 (there’s no data-backed reason for that number, it just sounds like a great amount to me).
- Check in on your feed and on the global feed and +1 and comment on stories you find interesting. +1ing content makes people stoked and commenting (in a genuine and authentic way) adds something to the conversation. This will only benefit you, and your AuthorRank, in the long run.
- Fill out your “About” section and title. People use this information to decide if they want to put you in their circles (especially when they’re on mobile).
There are some great posts out there on how to build engagement and a following on Google+ that are far better than what I can cover here. Check some out.
Befriend Relevant Heavy Hitters
Find other authors who would logically have a higher AuthorRank than you (see factors above and consider checking out Tom Anthony’s Author Crawler) and work on getting them to encircle you. Aside from having them in your following, you can also put your content in front of them every time you create something awesome.
Find them on Google+ and start to slowly and naturally build a relationship with them. You can use Twitter, Facebook, or any other means of communicating (in person is probably the best way, hands down) but you’ll want to be sure they have a Google+ profile. It also makes a whole lot of sense to make sure they have authorship set up themselves, but don’t discount them if they don’t: I’m betting that Google is going to make sure the process of verifying authorship much simpler and ubiquitous before they make any move to start using Author Rank.
Promote Your Author Hub
Your Google+ profile is the very hub of your authorship; it’s what Google uses to tie all your content together. Building links to it and optimizing it makes a ton of sense. If your Google+ profile has a high PageRank (yes, it gets its own PageRank) when Author Rank launches, it’s safe to bet that your Author Rank will be pretty hot.
Help People In Real Life
Attend local industry meet-ups, offer to speak for free at local blogging groups, and apply to speak at conferences. Be genuine and helpful. In your deck, link to a a blog post you published earlier that same day that they can reference for detailed information beyond what you covered in your presentation. Watch as that thing gets social mentions and links like crazy. That's a major Author Rank win.
Also, consider dropping a few cards with your Google+ profile URL on them.
Get Out There (Selectively)
Building links to your content from within your own site doesn’t carry much value compared to a backlink from another site. You control that site so of course you’re going to link to your own content (you’d be ill-advised not to). Having other sites link to you is much more meaningful because it shows you’re offering value (right?).
It’s the same with AuthorRank. If you only publish blog posts on a site you control, you’re playing with internal links (or at best, sites on the same host). Get out there and guest blog for (Dr.) Pete’s sake (sorry, AJ, even you). Remember to treat this process just like you treat it for link building; focus on site quality. Only pick high quality sites that have carefully curated content, because when that ties back to you as an author, it’s going to be just like a backlink to your site (hopefully you get one of those, too). You don’t want hundreds of guest posts on low-quality blogs with no editorial standards muddying up your Author Rank. Instead, shoot for a few high quality guest posts.
Daily Checklist to Improve Author Rank
Building Author Rank, just like SEO, needs to be an organic and gradual process; you can’t do it in a day, a week, or a month. However, here are a few things you can incorporate into your daily workflow that are sure to help build your Author Rank over time.
- Check your Google+ feed five times and interact.
- Chip away at your weekly blog post (you blog weekly already, right?).
- Read a post on a site you’ve targeted for guest blogging and leave a quality comment. Start building visibility (and/or a relationship) with the authors and editors.
- Look for two or three interesting people on Google+, circle them, and interact with something they’ve posted.
Conclusion
Years ago, Google realized that providing their users with better results would hinge on identifying and ranking the very people who produced those results. Until the launch of Google+, they had a great idea but no viable way to actually get it off the ground. Now they have everything they need: the idea (Agent Rank), the identity platform (Google+), and the verification method (Google Authorship). Now all that’s left is to fine-tune the ranking and roll it into the algorithm.
The impact of Author Rank will be so significant that we may as well think of it as a penalty designed to punish anonymity and/or a reputation for distributing low-quality content. Regarding the delay between the initial US Panda rollout and the international one, Fabio Ricotta of Mestre SEO in Brazil, said “you have no idea how good it is to have a six month lead on Matt Cutts”. Well, we’ve seen the signs and we know what to do. Let’s make sure this lead doesn’t go to waste. The time to start building Author Rank (for ourselves and our clients) is today.
Here comes a dump truck full of thumbs up. Beeep beeep beeep
[Promote this to main]
So stoked you enjoyed this. I hope I can inspire people to start being AuthorRank superstars.
Mike, we also appreciated this article. Great advice!
Second that! Great detail on AuthorRank Mike. Bookmarked this one!
great advice? no, its great advice https://bit.ly/QpEn8N (Norris)
I really liked your post.
Author Rank is acting already, simply it is at its early stages. But if you don't jump on it right now, you will need to make a bigger effort after, when everybody will go for it.
Said that, do it not just because it makes you rank better, but because - as it is easy to see from list of signals - it is the same than doing real Content based SEO (or Inbound Marketing).
Exactly! While it seems Google is giving author rich snippets pretty freely when it comes to text-based content, I've noticed that they're much more selective about displaying them on video content (YouTube). Perhaps that's a precursor to a full blown AuthorRank rollout!
I love your last point. It shouldn't be about ranking, it should be about doing real things that provide value. If you're doing real stuff that is helpful to your audience, your AuthorRank will grown based on that alone. I'm of the opinion that people who are consistently helpful and insightful should have more of an advantage in search, and I think AuthorRank will provide that.
Glad you liked it!
Great post, Mike!
As Gianluca said, it's already occurring now, and one example is Google MapMaker. Users who are making efforts to correct information there have more influence in influencing other NAP actions in mapmaker. Well done!
Wow! That's really cool. I haven't played around with that in years, but that is super interesting. It definitely seems like a lot of the pieces are already in place. Excited to see what's in the near future!
Mike, one THE BEST articles I have ever read on SEOmoz. Google Authorship has been on my mind A LOT over the past couple months and nobody covered it as clearly and effectively as you did. Well done.
That is so amazing to hear, Brandon. I'm so glad I've been able to clearly lay out this incredibly important concept for my fellow inbound/search marketers! Thank you for letting me know if was helpful.
Great post Mike, and it mirrors a lot of my own thinking. In fact, I've been active and engaged on Google+ right from the first day. I'm currently in about 275,000 circles and Google made a documentary about our Virtual Star Parties, so I'd say... things are working well.
To all the people who say Google+ is a ghost town, I'd suggest that you're making a very dangerous and short-sighted assumption.
Give Google+ a Solid Try
Assuming you're open to the possibility that you're wrong, I suggest the following action plan:
Do that for 30 days and tell me if you still think it's a ghost town. If you're certain you're right, there's nothing anyone else can do to convince you otherwise.
Google+ isn't for following your old friends to a new social network, it's about making new friends that share the same interests as you.
How to get the most value out of Google+
If you want to get the most out of Google+, and to connect with an amazing community, I suggest you do two things:
If you focus your efforts on those two actions, you'll quickly connect with the active people in your specific community.
Thumbs up added Fraser :)
Certainly consistency is a key factor in the growth ... and you mentioned it.
Even if you will add posts to your blog on consistent basis than more and more people will know you.
I am strong believer in consistent performance.
Great advice Fraser! I think most people jump onto Google+ and expect another Facebook, except most of their friends aren't there then they don't see the point.
Now to begin the 30 day Fraser Cain Google+ challenge!
Nice one Fraser.
I'm just getting into G+ now and already feel like a late adopter to it. You are 100% correct, it's not facebook, it's not twitter and neither it should be. It takes a longer sighted approach and accepted that right now, it's a slow burner. This is Google, we may not all like what they do in the beginning but working in Search has taught me to be very open minded and to learn from my own previous mistakes of dismissing new "tools", regardless of how they 1st evolve. Early stages yes, but it will do excellent things in improving spammy content, genuine engaging content which improves experience for both users and merchants as we know.Short sighted SEO's crave quick wins and put little effort into the longer win and the more solid win. I like to look longterm at my projects, yes I go for quick legitimate wins, normally based on others poor quality short sighted work! (ironic) In this arena we have to pretty much break away from thinking "users" and think more "engagers", this is where the benefit will come from. The users will be delighted with facebook as they "engage" in a "lite" fashion with family and friends. "users" / "engagers" on G+ for the next X amount of time will engage with Business, Business connections and Google. Google will use that information to shape the future of G+ and the overall quality of Google. I'm surprised to see the level of short sightedness here, but each to their own. If I was employing an SEO that dismissed G+ so readily, I would be Googling "Good SEO people in my local area" and looking for the rich snippets for sure.
Mike, you and I discussed this on Quora, and I love where you took it in this post.
I'm a new in-house SEO at a medium-size company and I am running into the corporate-culture issue you mentioned. It has never been a very personal brand, and I'm getting pushback when I talk about making it more personal.
Then there's the logistical concerns around who, exactly, should be the Author. In a perfect world, the owner is the expert and the writer and the Author. That's how it works for sole-proprieter blogs and very small companies -- and frankly, that's a big portion of where we've seen rel=author implemented so far. In medium and large companies, though, it may break down. The owner might not be the expert, and instead the expertise may be concentrated in employees. The experts may not be good writers, and the writing falls to someone on the marketing team. In that case, should we just give up on AR? Accept that no matter how good our content is, it's going to be at a disadvantage? Or should we try to wrangle with the risk of tying our rankings to employees' social activities, when they could leave the company at any time? Is it ethical (or feasible, for that matter) to make someone the Author even if they didn't write it?
This is a hard, but great, question and one that we all need to be asking. While I might consider the idea of having a company "spokesperson" who would never leave the company and gets all the Authorship credit, I think there's a lot to be said by playing by Google's rules. We know that that's something they're frown upon. The honest truth of it is that we know Google's trying to reward real, human subject matter experts. In this case, they're not concerned with equal opportunity; they want to promote people who are actually authoritative, who are well-written/spoken, and who will respond to comments and questions. The system is designed so that people who don't mee that criteria don't get a "bonus". That's the point.
I really and truly feel that companies are going to need to be shown the value of letting their employees and teams define them when it comes to author-influenced search. Right now, we have the rel=publisher tag and I think everybody should be using that for their brand and linking up their Google+ page. That way, you'll be prepared for the eventuality (IMO) of Google rolling out something that promotes "brand authority". When they do start looking at that more closely (I mean, they're already favoring brands), I think they'll use the AuthorRank of a company's employees as a factor.
I think we discussed this on Quora, but I think companies should have employees post as themselves using Authorship. If the employee leaves, that's fine. They did still work there at one point, right? They contributed something and even if they move into a different topic and their AuthorRank related to their old area of expertise deteriorates over time, it'll still help the company and still be great for the original author. I mean, this is just like links. If you get an nice link from an active topically-relevant site, but then five years later it's completely dead, that link won't have as much value. However, it's still good for you. It doesn't mean you should just never get links or only get links from the one site you know will always like your brand and consistently link to you. If the site that links to you ends up going to spamville, you can just remove it (since we're talking about Authorship, and not actually links).
I hope that response was sufficient. I've been up FOREVER and I'm not sure how coherent I still am.
Great article on a (currently) undervalued topic! Sanity check from my end: So far when I see author images from G+ appear they're always personal G+ profiles and never brand pages, or is that just a coincidence? Could you perhaps tell a little bit more if AR only applies to individual user profiles or not? IMO applying it only on individual user profiles would not be a wise step by Google.
At the moment, Authorship is only for individuals. That's what Google's trying to promote; people. On the other hand, we've also seen that search engines are favorite brands. I predict that another thing we'll be seeing in the near future is something for brands like Brand Authorship or Identity in Google. We already have the rel=publisher tag to link a website to a Google+ page, so that's the first step and we can do that right now. I bet Google will start evaluating brands in a more in depth way, but I think they'll use that data differently than how they use data on Authors.
Interesting reply Mike...
I'm currently researching how we can use our many customers to influence search rankings (both position & aesthetics/ctr).
For instance, assuming our brand has thousands of social followers, content shares with rel=author attribute, static links to profile pages from customer websites/blogs, inbound social links from G+'s "other profiles" field, in addition to their profile pages on our site tagged with rel=me attribute (back to G+)..
All other traditional SEO factors aside, would you expect our indexed pages be significantly boosted in the search rankings of both personalized search due to the extended reach gained by people seeing content from a website which has a relationship with their friend(s)? or do you see some plot holes in the above?
I'm not sure if i explained that clearly.
Best regards, Conor
"they want to promote people who are actually authoritative, who are well-written/spoken, and who will respond to comments and question."
This is a great way of putting it. Thanks.
This is a great article and I agree with it in it's entirety. What I like best is the positive outlook Mike has about these changes. Instead of doom and gloom and "the sky is falling" type of attitude he talks about like an opportunity, because that's exactly what it is.
The big picture here is a very good one for us. There's a conspiracy here where Google is conspiring in our favor! They're giving us an opportunity to distinguish ourselves from spammers in a major way. It's their way of rewarding people people for creating good content and making the web better. This article reflects that quite clearly.
So don't wait and get started now!
BTW nice job again Mike on your first post on here, you knocked it out of the park.
It's such an opportunity! I really think, perhaps more than any other major algo update in recent years, this has the biggest potential to provide higher-quality, valuable, and trustworthy search results. Thanks for the awesome feedback. I'm so stoked about the overwhelming positive reception.
Mike, at MozCon this year there was some discussion about rel=publisher and rel=author and that for a "brand" or an e-commerce site rel=publisher would be more appropriate.
Would you say that rel=publisher will function as the authorship for a brand or company that is not speaking in a personal voice, but as a brand?
What are your thoughts?
I've used rel=publisher for the blog's content and page. While the rel=author is corresponding to the individual writer. If i guess this correctly, the combo of rel=author that is tied to your profile will boost the rankings along with the AuthorRank.
I think that's exactly how those tags should be used. Good call. Author for an individual and publisher for a brand. I think that Google is definitely going to be developing some kind of Brand Authority or Trust metric and having rel=publisher set up may be an important part of that. I also think that the AuthorRank of employees could play into the overall authority of the brand.
Mike. Well researched post. It makes you realize that G+ is about more than competing with FB or Twitter. It is core to Google's primary search business.
Exactly! It always comes back to search and how they can utilize quality data sources to make it better for users (which, sure, ultimately gets them more revenue). So glad you found the post informative. Thanks for reading!
"It makes you realize that G+ is about more than competing with FB or Twitter."
That's a very pertinent point. I have to force myself to use G+ and will need to work on it.
Nice job Mike. Even like your mini jabs @AJ (one of my fave SEO mavens) and while I'm also not a rabid fan of guest blogging, I guess I have to bow to the AR benefits and get w/ the program. I pinned you green diagram for obvious reasons.
Thanks! I'll admit that guest posting is a lot of work and obviously takes time away from working on your own site. However, it's just like link building for your personal brand! I'm going to try to do it sporadically because I 100% think it will be an important part of building Authority with Google.
Glad you found the diagram useful!
Mike, I would have liked this just to support you. But it is truly insightful and relevant, I didn't know half this stuff about AR.
Kudos!
I can't express how awesome it feels to have provided insight and real value. If you want me to talk your ear off, just bring Authorship up next time we run into each other. Well, I'm actually talking about it at SEMpdx in November. ;-)
Haha, sounds great! I'm sure I'll see you at SEMpdx then.
Mike, you covered it super well here! Wow! This gave me a bigger perspective about the usage and importance of Google+. I'm an active user (and lovin' it) but never really thought in depth about the reach of networking on it and how it might (it certainly will) impact search rankings.
Great post! Thank you!
Thanks for the kind words, Mr. Minzer! I really love exploring the future of Google+, Authorship, and the impact on search. There's so much potential there and the biggest stuff is still to come! Glad you enjoyed the post.
So much information! I'm super excited about how author rich snippets attract the attention (and the clicks) in search, and if you add AuthorRank to the mix is just a win-win situation for all of us: writers and readers. And having the possibility of connecting with the blogger behind that useful/interesting post that taught you about X can be quite tempting as well...
The times of duplicated and stolen content are long gone, cheers to that my friend!
It is super exciting! I really and truly believe that this is going to be a great thing for everyone on the web. I'm also hoping that this can help do away with scraped and duplicated content!
Thanks so much for reading, Gisele!
Interesting. Very interesting. What happens to ghost writers and pseudonyms? :P
I'm surprised no one has mentioned or speculated about Klout. I fully expect Google to be snapping up influence measuring type companies next. Heck, they may even go after Klout.
And also worth noting Pinpuff, recently got acquired by Science.
No doubt, any new tech startup measuring influence or bringing that into the mix will generate a lot of interest in the "Author Rank" frontier.
Great point FlowSimple. Google has known to be able, to buy up services. I doubt that they will buy something like Klout, but they did buy YouTube a few years ago.
Great post, what I dont get about the “Author Rank” is that we have both a personal and a company G+ profile. If we have a team of writers, some employed & some contracted that provide some of our content how can we as a business take the rank, ownership and any potential juice if all the content is tagged back to individual level? and potentially to individuals who may leave the company in the future?
Seems like a grey area unless I’ve missed something.
I have the same thought. My company is using a business G+ profile, do we get "Author Rank" from a company G+ profile, or will it be another ball game altogether?
So to be rated as a good author, you need to talk to people in social media? Hmmmmm. Maybe I will attribute my articles to my wife instead.
AuthorRank.. bring it on!!!
I'm so excited to see that so many SEOs are onboard with AuthorRank. Let's bring it!
Thanks as always for the SEO share Mike. I like your style...straight forward and you tell it how it is!
Thank, Anita! I'm so glad it's appreciated. Look forward to more in the future.
Mike, this is some seriously good stuff! You my friend need to write more!
I love the "#RPS: Real People $h!t" and it's a great way to look at it. The sooner people start realizing how important author rank will be the better.
My goal through the end of the year is 3 posts per month. Adding guest posts (like this) on top of that. If there's one thing I love almost as much as SEO, it's sharing information about SEO with people.
Glad you like my derivative acronym! Now we just need to get more SEO and non-SEO marketers onboard with #RPS. I think a lot of people will see the value right away though (and, of course, lots of people are already doing it).
Do #RCS, that's great. I think building your author rank is the essentially the same as building your brand. Keep doing "RCS," just make sure you link to your Google+ profile when you do it.
Yep! Make sure Google is aware of you (through Authorship) and then do real people/company stuff! The rest will really take care of itself. Of course, we, as SEOs, can certainly help make sure that all this #RCS is getting the maximum value that it can.
This is GREAT info. I'm sending it out to my marketing team right now so we can get the ball rolling on beefing up our Google+.
Right now, we have a strong social media presence and focus primarily on writing quality content on our own site and others and on getting solid backlinks from QUALITY sites (our department motto is "slow and steady wins the race," which should tell you a lot about our marketing strategy). Our Google+, on the other hand, needs a little help.
Thanks for much for the great article with a relevant outlook on what's happening in the future of SEO that Internet marketing mavens need to know about now. Really great job!
Slow and steady is definitely the name of the game! Sure we could get away with fast and furious link building in the past, but that's slowly fading as a legitimate tactic. It makes me giddy knowing that this post is getting sent out within companies! If your content authors don't have Google Authorship set up, now's the time. Let me know if you run into any issues getting it going and I'd be happy to lend a hand.
Thanks for reading!
We can't wait for AuthorRank to roll out!
It's going to be a game-changer! I just hope we can all get non-SEOs on the train.
I think it'll be a new concept for awhile, but any half decent SEO will use it. As well as major publishers, media outlets, reporters, etc.
Mike - Getting non-SEOs (content writers and subject matter experts) on board can be a little challenging. The biggest hurdle I've encountered so far has been lack of technical understanding of how it works. I've had to explain more than a few times how to get basic authorship set up. Once over that hurdle, all is good.
I've found some good WordPress plugins that help automate some of the technical edits. "Google Author Link" is a great one for starters.
Hello Mike,
I just wanted to say a huge "Thank You" for all the thought and effort you put into writing and sharing this article. I am still just getting used to the whole idea of SEO and all that goes with it... I have a lot to learn, and I really believe your article has set me in some good directions. It also confirms what I sort of thought to be true: To be genuine and to contribute to the global community.
That said, I am not so sure how "awesome" my own content will be... Hopefully useful to someone out there. I am in a funny place where I am looking to expand my business in a non-native language area (Germany), but I know that most of my writing will be in my native English. I hope this works out in a way that Google will understand...
Perhaps a subject like that, cross language Author/Page/Rank - or credibility or whatever it would be- would be an interesting and relevant topic for a future post.
For now: Thanks for the tips, the concrete recommendations, and above all, the joy and inspiration that you communicate so well.
Cheers,
Bill
You're welome, Bill! I'm guilty of being one of those people who says "Oh yeah, just make great content!". Honestly though, it's a long road to actually being able to do that. Best of luck expanding your business. The topic of language-specific AuthorRank is an interesting one and something that I think will be just as challenging for SEOs as international search is right now. I think it'll be something that we can dig into a lot more once AuthorRank becomes a tangible reality.
Good Job Mike.
After a lot of garbage authorship posts...here it is a great piece of content about Authorship.
From all the other factors you mentions I think that Google would also evaluate (well known) Author interactions in other Trusted sites even if they are not social network or mainstream channels (ie Forums) and where they can from upvotes or downvotes (ie SeoMoz thumbs up or down).
Another point that is very interesting to me is "How Google will handle language specific Author Rank".
What do you think about that?
Thanks for the awesome words. Your question is a great one. I'd imagine they'd treat AuthorRank in multiple languages in a somewhat similar way to how I predict they'll be treating AuthorRank in different topics, with some tweaks.
For other languages, I think that if you have a strong AuthorRank in SEO in Portugese but you occasionally post in English, you'd have more positive overflow from your high native-language AuthorRank. Whereas, your native-language AuthorRank in SEO probably wouldn't trickle over very much into your native-language AuthorRank in photography.
We need more posts like this. Interesting that both the YouMoz and the regular blog post today were about tackling something before it takes off. I wonder if that was intentional.
Knowing the editorial team, hardly it was not intentional... :)
It actually was a coincidence. Mike had submitted a post that had been reviewed by four coworkers and was ready to go with minimal editing, and I'm still working on editing / getting revisions for some of the other posts in the queue, so this is what went up for the day. I didn't go an peek at what was being talked about in WBF for the day.
Wow, great first post Mike. Harris is right, I also predict a lot of thumbs up and a promotion to the main blog shortly.
You are right about Author Rank. I've noticed a number of people in the industry doing a lot of what you describe here in your post and they seem to be continuing to ramp up those efforts.
Now is the time and your post will be very helpful for people looking to get started today.
I'd love to see this on the main blog. :-) Glad you, and many others, are finding it valuable! Also super stoked to see so many people onboard with building AuthorRank ahead of time.
It is indeed valuable Mike! Glad it finally reached to the main blog!
good stuff!
Your post was very well done Mike. Not only in content, but in context. A lot of people are talking about Rich Snippets, Author Rank, and more so well-written pieces like this are very helpful to the community. Thanks again!
First of all, let's have a round of applause for Mike. Boy, you've got the guts to do the research and pump in when the iron (read: trend) is red hot, good stuff.
I would like to add my own insights/thoughts on AR:
1. Google+ will be the homeground of AR, agreed. But, what about everyone that has invested heavily on other social media channels, the likes of facebook and twitter. I bet Google's never going to get in there and include the popularity of the author on those networks. May be someone who is a noob on Google+ might be an expert on Facebook, and this is very likely to happen. Will Google read the no. of likes and comments and the level of engagement from an Author's timeline (https://www.facebook.com/rand.fishkin) ? Great. Will it also do the same on Twitter (after all that rusty talks going down to the period when Google had to stop realtime results) ? Well, awesome. And we are only talking about 2 networks yet. What about the others ? Is Google trying to act like a Goverment of Search Ranking and want all the other social networks to come and collborate their data if they want the authors to hang on ? Because if they don't, people will be forced to move on to Google+ to get better rankings then what they could achieve being on their existing network (Wait, do you want me to learn how to deal with stuff on a all new social network again ? Duh) So will Google manage to merge the data from hundreds of thousands of websites who have authors from all the different corners of the world ( Wuuh, BIG task) ?
2. The Rich get Richer and the Poor get Poorer:
Did Google learn this from the government in the developing countries forming reforms ? May be not. But this is well going in that direction. If you see it from this perspective, the big authors , the likes of Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, Avinash Kaushik, etc. would now have a better advantage over the newbies, whatever content they create automatically ranks on the top compared to the content created by small authors. Agreed, there are things like targeting different sets of long tail keyword, creating killer content which invites natural backlinks, etc. but if you sum it all up, doesn't it all boil down to AR now ?
3. Welcome the new Era of buying Author Rank:
We live in an era where people talk about link acquisitions. Soon , we will have SEO folks talking about things like Author Acquisitions - 32 White Hat Author Acquisition strategies - (rofl)
4. Will Barack Obama have an AR 10 ?
usa.gov has a PR 10 and who better than the President of United States applying for Google Authorship (You sure you want to request him to do that ?) for that site. What's next, will we see Mr. President having a AR 10 since he is the author of (at least in terms of Google Authorship program) usa.gov now? Yes, WOW then I'd rather open a charitable institute of his interest and ask him to Guest Post. Crazy in'it when ideas creep in around this AR thing, it's only bound to get more funny (and ugly?).
5. What about .edu sites ?
Is the Vice Chancellor (and he might change every 5 years) going to apply for the authorship of the University Website ? Google says you have to be a person to be an author and not an organization. So who is the author of harvard.edu ? Rat race in the next 6 months ?
6. For the heck of it, what about ANY site that is NOT willing to go for an authorship ?
Are they supposed to be dead since they do not have an author ? I mean not literary, but from the organic traffic point of view, YES may be.
I am a SEO and in this industry for more than 5 years now reading things on SEW, SEOMOz, SEJ and a host of other top SEO brains and hence I know things were going to turn to Social one day, so I did my homework, although I did not complete it like schooldays, and so I have some, not more but 700+ people adding me to their Google+ circle today.
But what about YOU ? What about all that people that Mike referred to who do not prefer to attach their name with their brand ? Go to en-route PPC and help Google make more money on their own ground ? WOW, what an epic thought.
Grow up Google, it's easy for you to improve your results (read: make more money in PPC) but not AT all easy for everyone to follow what you define. Let people live their own life in their own ways. If you can provide better results without affecting their lives, we'd love to praise you. Otherwise, you know you are heading in the wrong direction.
Tip for Google: How can you still improve results without having to burn our pockets ?
Make your algorithms more smart and complex.(Did I really say MORE ?)Try to fetch data from out of nowhere and learn more complex patterns of how content is lying on the web. Don't push people to add 2 extra lines of code every other year on their website just to make them feel they have done a great job. If you are smart, do it all yourself and pay your own bills.
Last but not the least, if you think AR cannot be manipulated, you are still living in the dark ages.
After lots if time i am getting nice content about autorank. and your Example are really good for anybody,.
Thanks a lot mike
You are very welcome, Tejas. Thanks for reading!
Congratulation Mike to promoting in main blog. Authorship is really working i have applied it when i was knew about this. It is really helpful as said by you. Thanks for sharing this concept with us.
This is a wonderful article, Mike, and as I'm sure you know, several of us in the real estate community have linked to and referenced this article - on G+ and Active Rain. It's wonderful and sets the foundation for how important authorship can be.
Anecdotally, it does seemed like this has already helped my site - the combo of G+ and even more importantly, having my picture next to my key blog posts. I believe it leads to higher click through rates.
BTW, I do flooring, and my posts seem to rank very well for flooring, hardwood flooring, refinishing hardwood floors, etc. But, I don't rank as well for carpet, so I need to work on that. My main site is TheFlooringGirl.com, but I'm thinking that I need to really do a carpet blog to rank better on that (and I do have another site w/ key words that have carpet in the name), so I think I may try that in a month or two.
Congrats for making the main blog!
Pushed me to go trawling through my past posts to start implementing the link to my Google+
Lets Get Future Ready! (OMG how cheesy is that)
Thanks for the info Mike, looking forward to further posts from you.
Hi Mike utterly loved the post.... Its awesome and very helpful. But I am bit concerned with what you mentioned here :
Here are a few things that are certain to destroy your AuthorRank as badly as Penguin destroyed sites with questionable backlink profiles:
Publishing content on blog networks.Guest posting through guest blogging communities (of course, there are exceptions) Can you specify these points a bit as I just want to make sure that I am on the right path! Great post once again !
*Thumbs up*
Here's a question - what happens when you sell a site? If it's tied to your authorrank, should you leave the connection, or remove it?
I think that G sometimes thinks webmasters keep their sites forever, and authors only write for themselves, when that is patently not the case
Great detail on Author Rank Mike! Having this knowledge is certainly going to be a great head start for all authors out there!
Great post Mike. I use technique like you and it's really work. Thanks for your experience!
Great post! Ive been trying to tell people about this for a while now myself. I check in and write reviews everywhere I go. I would imagine that time would be a key ranking factor as well. The longer you have been on G+ and been using it, writing reviews, getting +1s, writing content, checking in, etc. You also have to factor in search my world. Just by being friends with someone or having them +1 your content in the past will lead to your content ranking higher on their search. I think AR will only really grow when there are enough people using G+ that people using my world's SERPs begin to be muddied up with their firends or contacts unwanted content. Then they will need a system for whose content is more important and whose is more relative. I think this will happen on a peronal level based on past habits. Once again this was an awesome post! I just think the rabbit hole gets deeper.......much deeper!
The rabbit hole does go deeper! It's going to be so much fun. Really, it's going to be a whole new word for us, as SEOs, to explore! Sounds like you're already pretty deep into it. ;-)
Google is forcing the business community to use +1 while it really hasn't caught on in any way with "consumers" who are sticking with FB. Great social divide.
Whew! Lots of information here. Thanks for breaking AuthorRank down for us. You've inspired me to get my blog configured properly.
Glad you found it informative. Best of luck in optimizing your blog!
Based on your article and some of the signals from others this AuthorRank think may just be where it's at. What I like about your writing is it's not over my head and I get it.
Thanks.
I really do put a lot of effort into making sure complex concepts are presented in a clear and easily digestible way. Sure, I could write articles that are way over people's heads and that make me look like some kind of mad genius, but who does that help at the end of the day? Probably no one.
I'm glad you enjoyed the post. You are so welcome!
Awesome, awesome, awesome blog post Mike. This makes me feel so much better that I just told all the blog writers here where I do in-house SEO that they MUST get their Google+ profiles completed because authorship will be crucial to the success of the company blog. Thanks for the validation! :-)
Isn't validation the best?! ;-) So glad to hear you're advocating for Authorship in your organization. Adoption is going to be one of the biggest factors in making AuthorRank a reality.
A superb article Mike. There's been a fair bit written on Authorhip recently and not a great deal of advancement. I think you've raised the standard.
I like you list of Signals that will factor into Author Rank and would add:
Number of reciprocal links between G+ profile and Published content (Guest Blogs etc)
If I were to make a few predictions, there's going to be:
1. Increase in use of Google oAuth powered forums
2. Increased encouragement of using Google oAuth in commenting/discussion systems
3. Increase in Black Hat attempts of G+ Author Profile Distribution services. (basically Profile link building but using your G+ profile URL ) ... By definition it will inherently increase Negative SEO activity... This will be hilarious to watch because it is destined to fail and will be easy for big G to simply ignore but this won't stop the hordes of cheap outfits claiming they've got a back door secret to dominating google.
Once again great post Mike
Kind regards,
Duncan
Hey Duncan, thanks for reading and I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I'm glad I was able to offer real value here.
Regarding using the "number of reciprocal links between G+ profile and Published content", that's essentially one of the primary ways to verify Authorship, so isn't that already taken care of? That reciprocal relationship is essentially your log of authored content and the basis of all AuthorRank.
I'm definitely intrigued by your first two predictions. I need to look deeper into oAuth. Got any good resources?
Number 3 made me laugh out loud (no joke). More than any other SEO hack, trying to manipulate AuthorRank is going to be completely ridiculous. I mean, I think it'll be extremely hard, but they could prove me wrong. I just know I'm going to be getting clients forwarding me emails from unsolicited "firms" selling "automated AuthorRank building".
When I setup authorship on my blog I was SHOCKED how many more clickthroughs I received. Now I recommend (and implement it) as often as possible. Great post! Well done.
It's great isn't it?! It's like Google said, "hey guys, you want more FREE TRAFFIC to your site? Okay! Just help us make search results better." Funny how many people still aren't on board (e.g., 91% of tech websites).
Thanks for the kind words and stoked you enjoyed it.
That's a crazy stat! 91% of tech sites don't have authorship? No wonder those who do are winning easily. "I can't compete" say so many of my clients. "You're NOT TRYING" I say. :)
I mean, I think Google shares some responsibility for that stat since I think it's their job to not only make the process a bit more streamlines but also to convey the value. However, that's where we come in!
Mike, I really appreciate for this well researched post. Awesome topic.
Would like expect many such more articles from you
Cheers!!
So glad it was appreciated and well-received. Thanks for reading! I definitely plan on doing this again at SEOmoz. ;-)
Nice post. I am starting my homework right away..
Glad that you found the post actionable! Thank you for reading!
Similar to Brandon, Google's focus on authorship has been center-stage in my mind for some time. This post very well-detailed and gives us a good "informative list" that will help everyone stay ahead of the game. I do agree that authorship, where applicable, will have a great impact on SERPs and that we must have a detailed understanding on how it functions. Some time ago our team determined authorship to be enough of a game changer that we decided to implement it in our efforts. This post has stirred some questions that I would like some feedback on.
Here you go:
How do you think this will effect guest posting as a link-building strategy?
I mention this simply because link-building efforts in this post Panda/Penguin world throughout the SEO industry have largely defaulted to article guest-posting. To all SEOs out there: Are you prepared for a web full of blog/website owners who will no longer accept posts from [Joe Schmoe]. Get ready for another amazing WordPress plugin from Yoast that will automatically filter contributor applicants based on their Google AR. Someone will build it.
In what manner will other search engines follow suit?
Rich snippets obviously add value within SERPs. The other search engines will copy good ideas and implement them their own ways. Google uses the simple rel=author tag native to HTML, but they have the trump card, when referring to authorship, in G+. How do you imagine Bing and others will implement authorship?
This will definitely be bigger than Panda and Penguin.
After thinking about this idea for a moment, I completely agree, but for my own reasons. Panda and Penguin were meant to "filter out" sites that were exploiting the system; i.e. remove the bad content and preserve the good. Duplicate content and bad linking is one issue. Prevalence or weight of one person's work or web involvement is another.
I believe it will have more effect on the SEO industry than Panda and Penguin because it will completely morph the go-to link building strategy that is article writing.
The drawbacks.
Obviously Google wants people on their network (call it social or not, I don't really care) and they will reward those who do so. However, some prominent authorities will not comply. For whatever reason they choose, some will not ever use G+. Google will miss out on important information that is definitely relevant to their users. Google remains the leader in search simply because they supply "good and relevant" information to their users. If they decide to alienate non-G+ users, it would eventually lead to a loss for them and their users. I don't claim to have a way to associate user content to the actual author on an internet-wide scale, but it needs to be done to get full advantage of authorship.
@burchems [the red M&M (it's not a dot)]
Thanks for reading and for your thorough questions.
Guest posting as a link-building strategy
Great question. You’re thinking that AuthorRank could mean that webmaster get overly selective about who they let guest post on their blogs. It’s a great thing to contemplate, but I’m not that worried. In my view, only letting established authors be guests on your blog is a recipe for disaster. It’s almost like saying “I only accept posts from people who will give me a link from their PR6 website”. This question certainly warrants more thought though and it’s a much bigger discussion that what I could cover here.
Will other search engines follow suit?
I mean, the easy assumption is that Bing will see the huge value authorship brings to Google’s results and eventually try to do something on the Facebook side. Like many things that Bing tries, however, I don’t think that’ll work. Facebook is a much different platform than Google+ with very different uses. I the problem Bing is going to face is developing a “digital signature system”. It’s the same problem Google had since 2005 and that they just solved last year with G+.
Panda and Penguin
I think you’re spot on with this. It’s going to revolutionize content marketing!
Drawbacks
I think Google is definitely going to need to come up with a way to determine AuthorRank without it being dependent on Google+. I think with the knowledge graph, they have some of the foundation for that. Essentially, the know who major authorities are based on a variety of signals. They could potentially manually make connections between certain works to establish authority. For example, Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t have Google+, but he’s certainly got authority. They’ll need to find a way to give is “identity” more weight so that his published work shows up higher for searches on astrophysics.
I appreciate your detailed response.
You make a very good point about blogs only allowing established authors. The way I see it, blogs would work just like an open market; there is a finite number of truly established authors. They would severely limit their content quantity.
I think that without a resource like G+, competing search engines would somehow have to build the authorship alogs into their overlying ranking algos while providing the same end results with rich snippets.
Honestly, Google's knowledge graph already does the linking and relevancy internally. With the inclusion of G+ profiles they have essentially reverted a part of their ranking strategy back to their original ranking methods (manual rankings by people); they then outsourced the authorship to us, their vested users.
Now! this really helps me a lot! Great info Mike!:-)
You are more than welcome! Thank you for reading.
Thank you, actually a good article. And your image of the example SERPs reminds me that it is really time for me to update my SEO for WordPress article (originally published in 2005!).
The fact that someone in one of my examples actually read this and commented is both awesome and hilarious! I love it. Update that bad boy! When AuthorRank hits, you're moving up the search results! lol.
Per the advice of some wise colleagues, I began using the rel=author tag to link my guest articles (on certain high quality sites) with my Google+ profile months ago. After reading this article, I better understand the importance of doing so.
As somebody who fully believes in creating quality content that readers can actually use, I love the IDEA of Author rank, but I question whether it will be implemented smoothly.
My primary concern is this: How are we, as content writers, supposed to get the *magical* Google Author Rank credit for quality articles we wrote years ago? I might be missing something, but it seems to me the only way that Google will attribute content to its writer in AR is if there's a Google+ link in the article/bio, which older posts obviously won't have.
So it seems there won't be a way for us to claim (a.k.a. get credit) for older, content published on quality sites unless we can convince the current site owner to add another link into our bylines. That seems like a lot of work to do just to further satisfy the Google bots (but hey, what else is new?)
Glad to hear you're already using Authorship! I also think Google has some improvements to make before they'll be able to roll out something link AuthorRank on a large scale.
Linking up old content is definitely going to be a challenge, but there are a lot of SEOs who dig for links by finding content about their clients which doesn't link to them. The success rate on those "don't forget to link to us" campaigns is pretty high, so I think you may be able to get some movement. However, you can't win them all. It's really too bad. I think Google's going to have to keep it pretty strict or else they'll open themselves up to spammers who can manipulate an easier to implement system.
That's a good point. If Google moves to AR, I'd have to assume most credible sites wouldn't have a problem adding a link to give their writers the credit they deserve from Google. It just means more work will have to be done to stay on Google's good side (whether by guest authors or the sites on which they've been published). But hey, what else is new ;)
Danielle, the old content will be tough to bring over from other properties that you do not own from the past. I'm thinking that maybe the older content authored as a guest poster may be one of those things that will get "deprecated" before the attribution of rel=author, rel=publisher.
It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds though.Actually, I'm thinking that with the nw parameters it will help everyone to start from a "clean slate".
Unfortunately, I fully agree with this. If Google switches to this system at any point in the future, I will be sad not to get SEO credit/credibility for quality articles just because they were written before AR. Granted, that credit didn't exist before the rel=author tag anyway, so it's not like you're LOSING credit; you just might not be able to get all the credit you deserve.
Can we use Google+ Page link instead of Google+ Profile link?
Thanks for this post and all the details about author rank.
I'm curious about something. How can we get Google Authorship on our SlideShare presentations or is that even possible?
There is significance to author ranking as it serves as a booster to a healthy SEO. Its importance will continue to rise and the worth of established authors will increase in the future.
This sounds really exiting!! Game changing as you said. I will, from today, be a lot more active on G+. But i still don't understand. So please, someone help me out here.When i create a website, how do i "tag" the content so that Google can see that it is me who created the content? Is that the way to go or is it about linking to all my websites from G+?Someone?
Read the article again and I think I found it. Thank you'll anyway :)
So, I've been working on my Author Rank and I've been doing a pretty good job of building up a presence on G+ in my niche (just post something controversial and you will get dozens of mentions and comments!).
But, excuse me if this is a stupid question: How do I know what my author rank is?
Is someone going to come out with a tool that tells AR in the same way as PR? Because if we don't know what our AR is, then it is going to make it even more confusing to determine what is getting results.
I'm not a SEO. So, I'd like an answer if someone has one!
Google Author Rank is the very next algorithm after PANDA, PENGUIN and EMD updates
Wow. Author Rank is huge. This is one of the most interesting topics I've been studying since before the dawn of Google penguin.
Magik Mike ;)
Thanks for the great reading. I have a question, If I have 2 sites a and b, and I'd like web b to place well in Google. Is that so bad to link from a to b? When I have author-ship on both websites
Great post!...I thought months ago this would start to become much more important. Do you think in the future companies will start asking/ paying high authority authors to guest post on high authority sites linking back to their sites?
Very enlightening post Mike!!!
I have a question if you don't mind... we have a multi-author blog where multiple contributors from all over write for us on our blog, but also have their own gig going on their own blogs. Any advice on how to handle this? We are in a prolific web culture where content creators are published all over the place. How does a brand capitalize on AuthorRank when it's content creators don't write exclusively for the brand?
Thanks again for the post!
Sad that they are pushing their Social Network so bad. On the other hand I won't think that this will effect all markets within Google. Their are still lots of markets like local business where author rank will not be a strong factor.
Great job on this article! One other interesting note is the concept of the "Authorship Bounce", which serves as confirmation that CTR and bounce rate are considered in Google's algo and with Author Rank. This refers to the fact that if you spend a minimum amount of time reading an article by a given author, then click the back button, Google will actually serve more article examples by that same author in the SERP page.
First off, great article. I completely agree that people better jump on board sooner than later. I've been implementing G+ and authorship to my sites. But any thoughts on having an actual google+ page vs just having a profile to post from on Google+? Do you think that Google would put more AuthorRank to Google+ profiles that also have a Google+ page?
To be honest, I don't know what to do with my Google+ in terms of page vs profile. You can't add people to Google+ pages first. They have to add you. So there is less reach. So when I post, do I post to my page, my profile, or both?
Just by thinking it through, I would think due to the fact that only people can follow your G+ page and you can't add them to your page first, a Google+ page with say 200 followers would carry more weight for Authorrank than someone who has 1000 followers just on their profile.. Many people will follow back someone out of politeness or just because it's the main way people do things. It means nothing IMO to have multiple followers of a profile on G+. It means a heck of a lot more to have followers on a G+ page where the user has to usually show way more initiative and choose your page first instead of the standard following someone first so they follow you.
So any thoughts on G+ pages vs profiles only? I would put some weight into page follows vs profile follows. But my reach is cut big time with posting just to my G+ pages.
Do you know if the Google Authorship Programme is open to organisations? By that I mean, can the byline be ‘by an Acme Industries Staff Writer’ instead of ‘by John Smith’? Also, can the image be a logo image instead of the author’s headshot? Incidentally, we are a nationally-recognised brand (in the UK).
I have the same question- my company's blog has numerous bloggers and I'd like to credit them, but also build up the company name at the same time. We have a Google + account for the company.
google moves in mysterious ways!
Mike,
I have setup Google Authorship and my articles are appearing with my pictures, but not the number of Google+ Circles I am in. So, if you click the link below you cannot see "in ## Google+ circles" like you can for any other author post.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22michael+cohan%22+author&oq=%22michael+cohan%22+author&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.3307j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=%22michael+cohan%22+and+different+mba+programs
I am not logged into Google (the fact that it is my account might explain it). So, why is this occurring and what can I do to fix it? Thank you very much in advance for your help.
Mike
Is the ratio of followers to following a matter of Author rank?
Kindly, reply me.
Do you really think that having a presence on article directories will negatively impact Author ranking? There's a large group of quality authors writing on sites like EZine articles and squidoo.
Yes. I really, truly do. Think of it this way: when was the last time you saw Rand write an awesome blog post for Ezine Articles or create a Squidoo page for "Best High Value SEO Tools"? Thinking outside of SEO, does Martha Stewart write articles on Ezine? No. For better or for worse, people who are authorities and experts don't do that. They publish their stuff on high quality sites that people know by name. They don't write content for sites in order to get backlinks or unqualified "exposure". If you want Google to treat you like an high authority and respectable author, you need to act like one. We all do.
Hi Mike,
hope you are still reading the comments of this post. My question is, what if we we assigned an author to an article and after some days we realized it was not the right author? does it affect on google if we change the author after some days?
Author rank got a great popularity among people after the release of google update and people did their best to achieve author rank by putting their efforts in creating quality content which attract readers and then as the reward, they achieve author rank which give them long term benefits. Well it's a great way of providing quality content to the users.
Hi Mike,
I realize this post is really old but I currently helping a client implement Google+ and AuthorRank SEO strategies as an institution. I posted this question on Moz https://moz.com/community/q/authorship-seo-and-implementation-at-an-institutional-level. My biggest challenge is the loss of incoming links or mentions for the company that sponsors the writer through-out time. Let me know what you think. Thanks Carla
Hi Everyone,
Does anyone know of a great case study on how an institution and/or company implemented authorship in an organized manner to benefit their SEO efforts as an organization?
Moz, I noticed you guys seemed to have done this? Can you give me some high level guidelines? BTW this would be a great blog post.
Thanks
Carla
Now that authorship is discontinued on Google Plus I'd like to see how else they will determine author rank in the future.
Does anyone know whether PayPal engagement helps in PageRank? In other words, do the search engines, especially Google, reward a site with a higher PageRank if customers engage with the site by buying through PayPal (by Google being aware of PayPal purchases and not just increase pageview time resulting from the purchases)? I use my site in a business which helps to save lives, so you would be helping in that effort. Thank you! https://www.curbnumbers.com
Great article. I'd like to know more about the difference between rel publisher and rel author and how it affects rank. I agree a lot of companies would be reluctant to have their key staff creating their own Google plus profiles as issues arise should that employee leave etc.
This is a factor that must be present in any SEO strategy today.
So let's wait for the results...
very nice understanding about Google author rank and its ease to understand and well written. Google author rank need to all website to get high rank of their website on Google search engine.
Like every technology it is a choice. Many things have come online, even from Yahoo and Google which haven't worked in the past.
There is a certain benefit to Author Rank and at Try A Million I think we will be pleased with this change, as it highlights the essentials for original content which we do for clients the world over.
It does seem though the integration of Google+ is going strong, and where before had facebook likes being a big thing, now Google+'s are also finding the light of day.
Overall it is a good thing, it will allow people to decide on the success of things. It's not what you know then, but who you know.
As such a lot of the IM tools will gradually be no point, at least from the Google percepective. The change will be toward people. It is interesting though how the net has changed, from the time before paypal - and oh no don't put your credit card on that site, to people publically using full names. We have come a long way.
I like this change obviously, and quality content and strong support from people is the right way to allow anyone who wants to make it with quality to make it.
Create a great day,
Kozan
Hi Mike, I need some advice. I need to jump start my page rank for a re-designed niche directory site. I have no page rank at all and about 11,000 pages of low quality content on the site that is indexed by google. I intend to scrap that content that consists of blog and listings and start from scratch.
I need to get ranked fast to attract users and sponsors. What should I do?
Great explanation about author rank... We should start working on social rank from now...thanks
Hi,
Your post is very interesting, also a couple of months after posting.But I have a question. I'm running a couple of content websites being part of a media company in Belgium. We have several journalists working for them and writing good, unique content. I would like to use Authorship to strengthen the traffic from search, but can I use Author Rank not linked to my individual journalists?
If some of them would leave the company I would lose their AR and my competitor who would employ him/her would get the goor AR for free. Ofcourse this works both ways, but I pay the journalist to write good stories, and would like to have the authority linked to my site and brand instead of to individuals.
Or am I losing the point here?
thx for any feedback.
Patrick
Mike great stuff here for SEO Moz, lemme adress your question Patrick.
Q, ...but can I use Author Rank not linked to my individual journalists?
A. Yes, just input there G+ Page into their user role profiles where it calls for the info and then verify snippets on G +. You can have as many verified authors as you like.
The second part of your questions is more an observation. Yes, your right. Googles social layer G + with author verification and author rank coming (or already here) :-) is fundamentally based on Google sustainable business model that subsidizes it's portfolio of products for users to use for free through the service income of AdWords and premium service like Maps premium. Therefore, the adage applies, "Don't be evil".
As is the case if you are a reporter for CNN or the like, your work and influence follows you just like in real life. This is all again coming back to what Mike has discussed here, connecting the content to verified identities; influencers. (real social media)
Finally, just wanted to share my new ebook, 'Circled' The Essental Guide, HOW TO DOMINATE YOUR COMPETITORS! Will be live as of tonight on Amazon - link at our site.
Ron Lee
Editor / Author - The Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics
Hi Mike,
A very nice to the point article on Author Rank.I have also written a article on this "Google Author Rank"Is Author Rank the future of SEO?
https://etechdiary.com/google-author-rank-biggest-google-update/Hope you like it :)
This is by far the best post on AuthorRank out there. Just one thing to keep in mind is that it's possible that AuthorRank may never become a big part of the Google algo. It's just speculation at this point. So it's not wise to put all your eggs behind the AuthorRank basket. Again, awesome post!
Hey Mike Arnesen, I don't know if you're still tracking the comments on this post but just in case, here goes anyway...
The Boring Stuff About Me:
I am a small time Local Business SEO Specialist (typing that never gets old hehe!). I'm NOTHING compared to you awesome peeps here at SEOmoz, but in my home town I feel like an SEO Rock-Star! A Big Fish in a small pond! YAY! (ok, that was just for fun). I get paid mostly by services given back (massage therapist for example).
I have implemented the Google AR for only one of my own sites and also for my 15 yr. Daughters guitar blog.
My Main Point For This Comment:
This article has been such a great resource for me that I bookmarked it into my toolbar until I get the chance to print it out (I'm just moved into a bigger house, still not settled in yet).
Thank you so much for writing this even though it is over 6 months old at the time of this comment!
Gary Anderson II
Anyone have any experience with article sites and improving author rank?
Very useful tips on improving the Google author rank. I was searching for the ways where I can utilize Google+ much better to improve my SERP. Your tips will help me a lot.
Great post Mike, and a sensational debate on the merits and potential of G+. I'm still a little conflicted only because it seems that AuthorRank can only ever give credit to authored content by definition; blog posts, socially networkable content. But what about the considerable content that might be entirely relevant for a particular SERP yet simply be the product category page or product detail page that many of us SEOs are charged with giving visibility to?
By investing time in AuthorRank now are we future proofing ourselves and our clients for an algorithmic shift that might improve overall DA (and the ability of all pages on a domain to rank better) or are we simply heading towards better placement of authoritative blog posts on any given domain?
Somebody gave the example of Rand guest posting on a small blog. Would AuthorRank metrics improve the DA of that blog or would just the post to which the AR is attributed benefit?
The benefits are clear from a link building perspective. A high AR blogs or guest blogs and fires juicy links packed with trust back to a clients site. But can an onsite blog, authored by multiple authors with high AR, appended to a brand new ecomm site fire it to the stars? I'd be interested in preparing for that possibility...
I couldn't agree more with the majority of comments. I think its great that we begin to look at these ranking factors. I did however enjoy reading "addz123's" comments, its great to look at things from a different point of view and while I didn't fully agree with all of the points raised I do understand how looking outside in, it may seem unfair to push marketers to do "as Google says" but unfortunately this is their product and actually they can do with it what they like. They must continue to develop new ranking algorithms to keep the playing field open...(also to keep us SEO's in a job :) )
I found it interesting that no one has yet mentioned the recent privacy policy changes that Google released. These changes allow for data between Google products to be passed between one another, eg. between SERP's and Google+. This means they can analyse the profiles and use that data to manipulate the search results (another highlighter that this change is coming!) (not saying this is the sole reason but just another prediction...)
On a separate note I wanted to add a handy way to import all of your LinkedIn contacts to Google+. Go to LinkedIn and under the connections tab select "export contacts" export as a CVS and save to desktop. Then in Google+ Circles page "upload an address book" and navigate to the file...easy and very handy :)
Thanks for the Post Mike (gave you a tweet :) )
Great Post!
Hang on hang on..great post yes and really insightful, no question. However, this stinks of Google monopolising by using it`s own Social Network! which it said it would not do. So now everyone`s got to have a Google + account if they want to be noticed and as for working for clients...guest posting is useful tool. As I`ve said before on here, we are all manipulaters..that`s what SEO is. We can generate great content all we like but Guest posting is a large part to that and now I have to create an account on Google+ and be several different personas and keep the social details up to date and populated just to get rank for my great content I get on a guest post?...seems like this is going to cause a big issue...certainly for what I do. For example, great content is all very nice but what about when you`re writing for a heavy machinery company who produce steel components....where you sharing that then? Or a post on cleaning offices....who`s sharing that? Don`t want to be a misery guts here but I`m confused as to how this change is a good thing. I`m not a spammer but I do use Guest Posting...of course I do because no matter how great my outreach is, noone wants to link to a stranger anymore!
Authorship and individuality are all good, correct me if I am wrong, but the current Authorship rich snippet is for individuals only and quite limited.
Therefore my first question is what about other entities - companies, organizations, etc? Many excellent content online are created and attributed to entities like SEOmoz. SEO Industry Survey is one example. It's the result of a collective work and can't be attributed to one author. Will Google be tweaking the current Authorship rich snippet to accommodate that?
My second question will be the collaborations. Many great pieces of content, for instance, research papers(You will struggle to find a single research page that are produced by only one author on nature.com), are produced between two or more authors, The current rich snippet seems to me can work one per page. How will Google address that?
They already have this with overall domain authority. This is going to allow them to define the authority at an individual author level.
So, imagine if Rand Fishkin wrote an article for an unknown blog. That article would do well in the search results because of Rand's personal brand.
Multiple authors is a very good point.
I don't agree with the idea of Guest blogging. I have to follow AJ Kohn idea on this. You said guest blogging is required for getting external links. But Because AJ is creating very good content on his own blog, people link to him naturally, like you just did in this post twice to 2 different posts. Therefore increasing his personal Brand, and keeping the visitors on his blog.
Interesting article!
Thanks
Great article and I love the daily checklist that you broke it down to. thank you!!!
Funny GOT reference, I think most would rather deal with white walkers than this update.
I am genuinely looking forward to this update though, perhaps it will be the stone that breaks the camels back and convinces clients of the importance of a valid content stream!
Great post man, huge amount of information. You really did your research!
Cheers,
Sean
Dear Senior,
I have Learned a lot from this and found a new way to approach differently on the web I kind of like this Idea and its detailed one too but considering almost every thing is not correct.
I hope future does make some difference related to this.....!!!
Great Post bytheway....!!!
Regards,
Ahmed Adnan
Really nice post Mike and a h*ll lots of comments here!! Exciting to see how this eventually will affect the serp big time.
You forgot about one thing... live how you learn and by doing that, link this post to your Google+ profile for some juicy juicy Author-rank ;)
Thanks for the post, most helpful! Will keep my eyes open for this one.
Mike, you're post is extremely naive and I don't know why you seem to beleive Author Rank could change SEO.
You've talked about all of the potential possibilites and factors that authorrank could take into account, but let's look at the drawback:
1) No one uses G+. I don't have a single friend who uses G+, and even most SEO's who sign up to G+ intentionally to promote themsevles have no one to talk to. In fact this whole post seems like a promotional ad for G+. In order for Author Rank to be even possible, 90+% of people would need to be actively using G+. As such, it's technically impossible for Author Rank to be implemented in the next year, yet alone tomorrow.
2) Even if Author Rank was implemented, wouldn't that violate anti-competition rules because it would force people to use G+ (one of Google's products) to do SEO? Further more, you would be punishing sites for no using Author Rank which is moronic. It would be tantamount to punishing a site because it hasn't added a +1 box.
3) AuthorRank would be INSANELY biased towards editors. Not everything on the web is a feature article...
It just doesn't work, you can't bring out author-rank unless it has universal properties for everyone. Just consider the name - AUTHOR RANK. This means you could be a professor, internet marketing genius, have something extremely insightful to say, yet unless you're a regular editor you're author rank will be low. It's not going to be an indicative ranking signal for quality content. You're basically telling me in this post I need to make tons more friends on G+ in order to get better author rank? Do you think the number of friends I have makes a difference to the quality of my content lol? If my friend has 100 more friends on Facebook do you think that means he's a better writer?
4) Website Anonymity. Tons of sites use ghost writers, anonymous writers and copy writers who don't want their G+ profiles on the content. It's not becasue it's spam, it's because companies like mine want the website to be the brand, not the author. Would Wikipedia ever use Author Rank? I mean hell, if you're gonna have Author Rank then you should have Company Rank (since this is the business in charge of maintaining sites and hiring editors/writers) and Friend Rank and IQ Rank and CV Rank etc.. Do you see where I'm getting it?
5) What incentive do sites have to even implement G+ Authorship? You can't just keep saying Authorship is important for SEO, because Google wants webmasters to focus on the user, not the Googlebots. If you're using G+ Authorship for the sole intention of SEO and boosting your rankings then that's spammy and not the incentive they want.
6) You said your Author Rank is going to vary across different industries? Haha. How would it be possible to even implement this please? Even factors such as G+ interaction and post frequency would be a terrible indicator of post quality. The factors that actually matter - comments, content quality, social signals, are all more relevant as website signals.
7) Writers get paid different amounts on different sites. According to Author Rank, all content an author writes is equal. Yet if he's being paid 10x more on a major newspaper and compared to his freelance work then the content quality is not going to be the same. I have plenty of writers/examples of that.
8) In order to arbitrarily get their Author Rank up, people would be paying sites to allow them to guest post there and pay to get followers on G+. Is that helpful for users?
In conclusion Mike, I think you've completely misinterpreted G+ and Author Rank and how effective they can be. G+ is a social network - the more friends, shares, likes, interactivity you have is not at all relevant to the quality of your content. There is no possibility at all that Author Rank will ever be a significant update to the SERPs. It will be a smaller addition to the signals that Google uses.
Also, if G+ Authorship became an important ranking signal, it would be exploited like everything is. Rather then buying links, authors would be paid to lend their name to an article ranking for "car insurance" even thought it might not necessarily be written by him.
It would honestly be a very scary day if G+ Author Rank ever became important for SEO. Far too many legal liabilities (pushing people to use G+), authors would be paid to endorse content they didn't write, SEO agencies would be firing staff just so they can hire a well known author, junior staff writers would be slated in preference of authority writers - based solely on G+ metrics.. If major newspapers and media sites such as MoneySavingExpert.com see SEO as a strong source of traffic, and then this gets picked up by smaller sites and companies, who is ever going to give junior writers a chance? Also, what's stopping someone from just assigning their most important articles to the top author so that it gets higher rankings.
I just don't think you've thought this through at all. You've looked at it purely from a scientific, SEO point of view and not from a holistic one.
I think that people will try to take advantage of it, just like people have tried to take advantage of every exploitable ranking factor that Google has ever recognized. There's no avoid that. I, however, feel that AuthorRank is going to be much more difficult to manipulate without Google catching.
Thanks for reading, commenting, and keeping the discussion going.
Glad you read the post and took the time to comment. Looks like we don’t agree, but allow me to retort.
1) “No one uses G+”, “G+ is a ghost town”, “G+ is Google’s most embarrassing failure”. I hear this stuff all the time and I know exactly why; it’s because that’s how a lot of people feel! I will never argue that. On the other hand, since this post (and entire site) is about SEO, of course it’s promoting Google+. Google+ is so much more than a social network, it’s a tool that we have at our disposal to improve our search marketing.
What percentage of people do you image are savvy enough to use structured data markup on their product reviews? That’s still gets used in search. How many website owners know how to dig into Webmaster Tools and use it to improve how their website performs in search? The impact of that is huge! Just because a lot of people don’t use a tool doesn’t mean it’s naïve to think that it will change search.
Quite frankly, the bottom line is that regardless of how anyone feels about using Google+, Google has explicitly stated that they are going to be ranking content creators and giving them an advantage. We know that because that’s what they said. Now the question is, do you want to be ready for that or not?
2) I don’t see why. Remember the days when Googlebot wasn’t as good as it is now and you had to submit URLs for inclusion in the index? Was that an anti-competition issue? You were using Google’s product to do SEO. I guess it’s a valid thing to bring up, but honestly, we’re playing in Google’s bedroom with Google’s toys because we want to get the other kids there (searchers) to see us. If you didn’t want to play by those rules, you could start a careers as “the guy who only optimized for Bing and Yahoo”.
3) I do agree with you on this point. Google is going to have to make authorship a whole lot easier so that it can extend beyond simply “tech people”. I’m not sure if that’s just simplifying the application for authorship process or if it’s manually adding people of note to the authorship database. However, please don’t forget the truth of that matter is that people who don’t understand web search are always going to be at disadvantage compared to people who do. If you don’t have a website and you aren’t publishing content online, it doesn’t really matter what Google thinks of you.
4) I do believe that Brand Authority or Brand Trust is something we can expect in the future. Please check out Claire J. Vannette’s comment above. We talked about this there. IQ and CV rank, I’m not so sure about because those things are irrelevant if the person isn’t creating content online. If that person does end up changing their mind and putting content on the web, getting Google Authorship is just going to be a step in the process.
Aside from the issue of companies wanting to have anonymous writers (something I think will fade in time), I’m not sure what the resistance would be. Authorship isn’t big for SEO because it tricks Google into thinking we’re helping uses. Authorship is great for users because it actually helps users and then just happens to be a great thing for SEO as well. I strongly believe that if you are using Authorship solely for SEO, you’ll be nuked in the search results. The head of Google just said (as I mention in the post) that they want to weed out the spammers. If you set up Authorship and only use it for SEO, Google’s going to be quick to ID you as a spammer and make sure you stay out of their results.
6) I don’t think that’s the case at all. All content an author creates will not be equal. It’s EXACTLY like getting links right now. If you get a link from the New York Times, that’s incredible! If you get published there, it’s the same thing. Throwing up a blog post on a blogger you set up in 15 minutes won’t and shouldn’t carry the same weight, for PR or AR.
In conclusion, I may have over emphasized Google’s future use of G+ activity as a signal in determining AuthorRank. It will be one of a vast array of factors. If you read through the article in depth, you would have seen that only 3 out of 11 factors I listed are explicitly related to Google+.
I’m honestly surprise how long it took for someone to disagree. Many, many SEOs feel that AuthorRank is going to be a significant shift in SEO and I’m just happy to have had the chance to add to the conversation and expose people to the idea. I know one blog post on SEOmoz is not going to convince everyone.
(I see that you edited your post later on to add more questions. I can try to hop in and answer those when I have some more time.)
Awesome post Mike and agree that adoption of G+ will benefit authors and the companies they work for with rewards of additional Google organic traffic, including better positions in the SERPs, and higher CTR due to image in SERPS, at least until everyone is on board, when the "stand out" factor fades.
Regarding point #1 - Google just (within the week) announced that Google+ now has 400M users, well past early adoption phase on the technology adoption curve and moving quickly into mainstream.
Search Plus Your World update has had a profound effect on [personalized - on by default] search results with impact continuing to increase with every new G+ user.
How strong a signal G+ and authorship is going to be now and in the future is a healthy discussion and like everything else Google, should be monitored carefully to determine if adjustments to the authorship plan are needed.
addz123: I don't have a single friend who uses G+
I'll be short and simple -you most likely have no friends. On Google+, here or anywhere else.
Consider uploading your avatar and fill out SEOmoz profile first. You might then stop wasting everyone's time.
Harsh, you're making that accusation just because he disagrees with the post for a number of perfectly legitimate reasons?
You are a self-employed internet marketing strategist; there are people who would draw conclusions about your social popularity from that...
peace.
SearchGimpDude and addz123, what I'll say below has nothing to do with my personal brand or trying to portray myself better. It comes from my heart.
I sincerely apologize for my comment 2 days ago and bad feelings it caused. I should've not said it. I'm sorry. I had a "moment." I should've not protected some brand/tech/software (it's never worth it) and put another person down in the process. I wouldn't do it in person and I should've not done it here online. It was harsh, unjustified and stupid of me. I'm sorry, addz123.
SearchGimpDude, I appreciate you being straight up.
Mike, sorry about this appearing on comments for your great article.
You went from internet tough guy to complete chicken feed...
addz123 raised a few valid points worth reading, especially compared to your generic "Great post! Thank you!" spun comment from earlier.
And what he said is true, no one actually uses G+
Yes mike you are right, i agree with you. AR basically depends on various type of factors, including Domain Authority,Page Authority and social media and many more factors . i think you you already described in this post. one more think is that AR Indicates Author is genuine not fake and author have full copy rights of it's content and site. Thanks mike for sharing this post.
Technically, since DA and PA are SEOmoz metrics, I don't think we can say Google will be using them specifically. Social media for sure, though. AuthorRank is definitely great in that it will separate the genuine people from spam content creators. I'm glad you enjoyed the post!
I Agree to craft your niche on internet as an expert writer you need to have higher author rank. There are a number of factors that affect this ranking.
Well, I'd actually saw that it's the reverse. To have a higher author rank, you need to be good writer and an an expert in your niche.
Just like one of the comments above, I've been pushing my google+ url onto articles I guest blog on for a couple months now. Furthermore, I've also noticed CTR are higher on pages where google displays author snippet.
Great article by the way Mike. This should definitely get the ball rolling for other webmasters.
Great to see you're already doing well with Google Authorship. Have you checked out the new "Author Stats" feature in Google Webmaster Tools? It's pretty neat! If you haven't seen it, log into WMT and then go to "Labs" on the left-hand side and then click on "Author Stats". ;-)
Great article. Can I use my comments on sites like Linkedin to build AR? I am kind of excited about this article and the changes that is about to happen. I just need to find a way to take advantage of it. Hi ho, Hi ho, off to work I go....this article, just like the Disney song has me smiling.
There is no doubt that this is one of the best post of SEOmoz.org.
Need to read it twice or may be 4 times to grab each word of this post.
Any one whoever wants to know more about the Google Authorship than this post is simply amazing with step to step guide.
https://searchengineland.com/the-definitive-guide-to-google-authorship-markup-123218
Hey Mike .. thumbs up added and now I am searching for more posts from you :D
I have seen a few articles on Author Rank, I feel it is probably coming but its probably not ready just yet, I mean Google is going out into the market still and trying to get brands to sign up to Google+ and set up profiles and based on this giving out free advertising if brands set up the G+ profile.
Excellent information. Authorship Spam is starting to take place. The black hat community never stops trying to cheat the system. Job Security for the Google Spam team!
Am I the only one that thinks the internet should remain anonymous (at least a portion of it?). The whole idea of being able to participate and share views and be free from privacy issues. Now we have to identify ourselves all the time as to rank highly in search results?
Hi Mike,Great article!I have a silly question: Is it possible to implement Authorrank using a Google+ page rather than a G+ profile ? Assuming we would like the logo of our brand/page to appear in SERPs instead of our face...
Thanks :)
In regards to the "How Long Do We Have Section," I think you've made a tough but true point. If something is forming inside the search engine that basically powers our whole business, waiting for that something to materialize seems risky. It's a recipe for having to play catch up when the new metric takes hold - and even if you can "light the afterburners" to get up to speed, you're still at a disadvantage when compared to the people who got onboard while they were just cruising along.
This isn't to say, of course, that getting onboard while still in "cruise" mode is trivial.
Do you think that there's a generality to be made here? That if Google launches a major service, you should probably consider how to integrate it into an SEO strategy? I have this feeling that anything Google launches and maintains (past the "science experiment" stage) could be very likely to become a part of ranking metrics.
This sounds good for me as an individual author, but as you point out it doesn't help me do my job as an SEO Strategist and consultant for many of my companies. That's one reason I've been slow to get this set up. That and the fact that I personally find Google + a waste of time...sorry, but understanding it's not going to be an option doesn't make it any more useful.
What I have done in the past is create pen names that I've used to write articles, etc. on behalf of my clients. If Google would accept those pennames as "people" this would be great. However, until Google says how they want us to handle the authors of a corporate blog that don't get to individual bylines, or pennames that are only digitally real, I can't see it becoming part of the algorithm.
Hey Mike,I Really Appreciate your work. Excellent article. You just alerted us. Its time to work on AR before one more Tsunami hits us
Thanks so much for the post -- great article.
Does anyone else see how G+ forces you to mix business and personal profiles with author rank?
In my case, I have a website about acne. I'm publishing good content, so naturally I want it credited to me. Now to get a high author rank I need my prospect to circle me, my personal author profile. And of course I have to share information and engage with my followers.
But this creates a conflict. Because I have to push those updates into my personal stream. That means also my real-life friends will see those, and they have no interest in acne-related info.
The only way, that I know of, to get over this is to manually circle back people who circle you. But that just sounds like a hassle, is a mess waiting to happen, and will inundate your stream with posts you don't want to see.
So far I'm only writing on one topic. But I'm planning to start another blog soon, about a complete different topic. So in time my author profile should have followers on 2 totally different topics. This is going to make even bigger mess of my public stream and people will get updates on topics they have no interest in.
The only way over this, again that I know of, is to have separate author profiles for separate topics - and might as well make one for personal use also, to keep things simpler.
Anyone else sees a problem here?
More importantly, does anyone have good advice to share? Would love to have this sorted before I get more deeply involved with G+.
Thanks for the great article, btw.
Wow, I don't know what to say that others here haven't already said but thank you for posting all of this. There is so much valuable information here that I'm going to be assimilating it all weekend as my homework assignment. Things have changed so much in just the past year that keeping up with the new/right ways of creating and promoting content takes nearly as much time as my full time job.
Thanks for the help Mike!!
Thank you very much for putting all this together, Mike. AuthorRank is definitely coming and the tips you've shared with us here are very useful in preparing ourselves. Definitely worth sharing!
Great article. I agree that Google+ is a tool and social network that's here to stay. Google+ has just put way too much money and effort into it, to let it go.
My only concern right now, is that the only people using Google+ are online marketers and consultants. If we're already spamming the internet with our links, what is to say that we're not going to spam G+.
This is a really great article and has given me a lot to think about. AuthorRank seems like such an obvious step for Google it's really surprising it hasn't featured more until now. Good to know that we as writers will start to be rewarded for the work we put in our company's/client's behalf. Thanks for the info!
Well done Mike Arnesen, nice and informative post. The use of author bio in the content or guest post increases the value of the author. Not only that, the familiarity or popularity of the author also increases for this. Overall result is huge page or post viewers, huge news convey, huge information spreading, business increases. Since Google is in the search field, it can easily implement the process and can calculate rankings for a site. Seems author rank will be the one of the main features that will be considered by Google while judging a site.
Great article Mike! I've had a Google+ account since day one but been unsure of how to use it to its full potential and how and when I would see the benefits of using it. Thanks for the advice, it clears a lot up and gives me the chance to get a step ahead!
Great post Mike! Haven't been reading much lately so I might say I'm kinda late for giving you a thumbs up. Google has been wanting to have a way to determine authorship between contents. Now we can integrate it with our Google+ accounts to actually say that "hey that's my article" and if the AuthorRank will be rolled out, this is gonna be awesome. One way of Google saying, "I already told you, create quality relevant content" or "content is king"!
Awesome post Mike. i am going to implement it to my blog.
Solid advice. I'm currently trying to build up my rank.
Great Post! We need more posts like this.
That is so amazing to hear, Author rank is coming us. Thanks fr this useful information.
Thanks for replying to my post. Thought it would take you longer to digest :)
1. G+ isn't popular. This is just a fact. It doesn't matter if you're involved in SEO, if G+ isn't popular then Author Rank can't be effective.
2. How does authorship even help users? Also there is a VERY HIGH probability that G+ authorship will re-direct traffic away from blogs/newspapers to the G+ profile page, where people will leave comments. As a webmaster I would hate that.
Author rank is just a lazy way for Google to rank content. It's an assumption that most of the content on the web is a feature article/opinion piece with lots of social signals. It's depressingly arcane. It should be the website/brand which receives credit for high quality content and social signals, not the author.
Hypothetically, if Author Rank was launched then it would revolutionise the content and media industry. Google News would turn into Google Author News, users would subscribe to authors rather then the Newspaper brands (which the newspapers would vehemently HATE and want to prevent from happening) and it opens up privacy issues across the board. If everyone online publisher is linking to his personal G+ profile don't you think that could become dangerous?
Honestly I can see large media giants who spend billions marketing their publishing brands 100% against giving power to authors and losing traffic to G+ Author News.
I think your going a bit overboard with your theory. Is Google+ a social media giant like Facebook? No. My personal opinion is that Google+ will be eventually, but that is a whole new topic.
Google Authorship isn't as corrupt as you are making it sound. First off, Authorship is never going to be the primary factor in determining rankings. So we really are just talking about ranking above other articles on the search results, not entire websites/businesses. Even within the articles on the search page the Authorship isn't going to be be final say. Google is still going to consider other things like the content quality, # of high PR sites linking to that article, etc.
Google needs desperately a way to filter out the crap articles that get a bunch of links pointed towards it by SEO's. Google Authorship helps solves that. Sure, an SEO can create a Google+ profile and start dishing out articles to the web and even create 100+ fake Google+ profiles to "follow" that writer. But that is far as it can go. If you are a putting out quality articles, people are naturally going to add you to their circles, and your Google+ PR goes up higher than a fake crappy SEO writer will ever go. If it's 100+ fake profiles that follow you, Google will be able to tell and you won't rank as high as people that have influential people that follow them.
Another thing that Google+ helps with is keeping track of all your articles. I could write an article for Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and Yahoo! Sports and those pages will rank well because those sites are already high PR's. But say I want to write an article for a lesser known blog that I am passionate about? Now that Google has a way of connecting all those articles to me, it can now say "This guy has written on some big publications, and people just love his content! Therefore, when somebody searches for a sports topic he's covered he should probably show up because he's an authority on the subject." Now that article I wrote for that small blog can now be noticed when it normally wouldn't have. It's not "rigging" the game, it's Google displaying relevant content that normally wouldn't have been discovered. SEO's can't duplicate that kind of authority, unless they are writing quality content that people love, in that case they deserve the following!
Yes I know everyone isn't on Google+ but Mike is simply saying if you want an ADVANTAGE, join now and start writing quality articles to build your following. This isn't a "theory" of Mike's, it's a fact. Google has stated that Authorship will play a bigger role. So if you have a problem with that, you really need to be emailing Matt Cutt's. Google isn't forcing you on Google+, just like they don't force you to do link building. You just choose to work your butt off link building because that's what Google wants, so why not take advantage of Authorship? With Google's monopoly and power in the search market, people will eventually participate just like they do in everything else that Google asks.
I agree G+ will be a social media giant.
My only point was that there are going to be some big technical and social issues to overcome. Mike is acting like Author Rank will be implemented tomorrow and have a bigger impact then Panda (which affected 10% of the total results), where as I think it will be a 2-5 yr thing.
Let's not forget that once implemented, every SEO on the planet will be creating fake G+ accounts and authorship. So you'll be seeing many personalised search results where many of the "authors" are actually fake G+ accounts.
I have a friend who works at a decent-sized SEO company who has already used a fake G+ authorship on some articles on his site. It's not hard to create G+ alias's, get some followers, comment here or there.
Finally, let's not forget that Cutts ALSO said +1 signals arn't providing enough accurate data to be used in the results yet. If you can't use +1 signals then i think Author Rank is way off.
I agree with you that Google Authorship isn't going to be the big thing tomorrow, but I also don't think it will take 2-5 years for it to take full effect considering we are already seeing a bit of a bump to those legitimate authors on Google+. Is Google+ the perfect solution? No. However, it's a step in the right direction to combat the horrible SEO's out there who give us white hat people a bad rep.
I also agree with you that every SEO will indeed get a Google+ account creating fake authors. Yes, they will put out articles and they will get +1's, followers and shares. However, those likes, shares, circles will be nobody important because odds are they publish crap articles that nobody wants to read. Like I stated previously, the writers that are writing real quality content are the ones that are going to benefit. The writers that have articles on high PR websites got them there because they write quality content. Guest posting right now is the perfect example. The PR 2-3 websites are full of crap articles that link back to crap websites. The people that guest post and write quality content are the ones that are getting on PR 6's 7's and 8's. Those articles got accepted because the high PR websites felt the article was quality and something their readers would enjoy. Nothing is wrong with that, right? Google Authorship simply takes it one step further and really makes those that write quality content stand out. Google Authorship isn't going to be a benefit unless you are writing "real company sh*t" on real company websites. The 90% of SEO's out there that think they can create a Google+ profile and still write the same piece of crap articles will fail. Why? Because nobody of any value will share their crappy articles.