Author Rank has been a long time in the making. Google filed a patent back in August of 2005 for something called “agent rank,” a metric that strongly resembles the authorship factor today.
Now, Author Rank stands to rival PageRank for determining a website’s position in the SERPs. We’re quickly evolving into a social web, and harnessing the power of authorship now stands to position you as a true expert in your niche going forward. Let’s look at what exactly Author Rank is, what’s changing, and how you can use the new metric to brand yourself as a leader in your industry.
A Little Background
A recent ‘Search Engine Journal article breaks down the origins of Author Rank as it appeared in the original 2005 Google patent. There’s also a screenshot of how the attribute looks in the SERPs:
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You’ve likely seen this in action while conducting recent Google searches of your own. Author tags are becoming more and more commonplace, and jumping on board now will help you become a thought leader in your niche and secure your position the SERPs for the long haul.
Why? The simple answer is that Google trusts websites that it knows the most about. If it knows who you are, it can figure out how to rank you. The algorithm can use signals to decipher whether you know what you’re talking about, which helps to weed out spam.
The 2005 patent indicated that Google’s had this agenda for quite some time. In it, Google suggests that a ranking “agent” (which would later become known as “author rank”) would use the feedback from the audience to determine the popularity of a piece of content. The more popular the article, the higher the rank.
Back in 2011, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, stated publicly that Google was on a quest to identify “agents” (authors) in order to provide better search results for users. He’s quoted as saying, “it would be useful if we had strong identity so we could weed [spam] out.”
Makes sense, but back then Google had no real system in place to figure out who wrote what and what else they may have written.
That is, until now.
Enter Google+. It’s a social network, yes, but don’t discount the power of the system when combined with authorship. Now that Google has both the technology and the reach, Author Rank will undoubtedly become a major ranking factor in combination with the PageRank of a particular piece of writing.
Proof positive: Google rolled out its social network and tied the identity of users to Google Authorship, thereby creating a database of people to draw from when listing search results. It’s real, it’s happening, and it’s the future of social search. Now Google can follow through on the mission it began back in ’05: identifying authors and ranking their content accordingly using a basis of trust.
The Future of Search
If you don’t think that social signals are going to dominate search engine ranking factors over the next few years, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you. Author Rank will be every bit as major of a metric as PageRank is today, and the two signals will work in tandem to largely determine where you’ll place in the SERPs going forward (among other factors, of course).
Gone is the era when raw, anchor text-rich links alone determine where your website will place. Now, multiple signals will decide your fate, and Author Rank will be a major player in the calculations. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Google is all about trust – after all, that’s why PageRank was created, and that’s what the authorship attribute will be about, too. If Google can determine that you’re a respected voice in your niche, then you’ll enjoy more prominent placement in the SERPs than your lesser-known peers.
One caveat: Googlebot is not a human (this isn’t The Matrix…yet). Google will of course need hard data to determine how popular you are with your crowd; the algo alone can’t process purely qualitative information. That’s why Author Rank is so vital: it helps weed out the big players in the field by using social ranking signals (think Google+ circles, for example). Then, it ties everything together to determine your reach, and thus, your rank.
How to Make Authorship Work for You
To get in on the Author Rank action, you need to activate your authorship status. To accomplish this, all you need to do is link your published content on specific domains to your Google+ profile. There are two methods for doing this. Use the first method if you have an email address associated with the domain on which your content appears. Opt for the second technique if you don’t have an email address at the domain in question.
Regardless of the approach you choose, the first step is to ensure you have a recognizable headshot as your Google+ account avatar. The picture will display as a thumbnail in search results beside your ranked content, so make sure you use a clear close-up shot that people will recognize.
Every page of content you write, should include your byline and the byline you use must match your Google+ profile name exactly. If your byline is not present, Google can’t list you as the author in the SERPs, so make sure you include your name on every piece you write. In a guest post situation, don’t forget to ask the webmaster hosting your content whether it’s okay to include your byline and code for Google authorship in the metadata of your post.
If you have an email address at the domain for which you’re writing, stop by Google’s Authorship page to submit that email address to Google for approval. You’ll only need to do this one time per domain. After you do, your email will show up in a section of your Google+ profile called “Contributor to.” You should ‘change the visibility of your link if privacy is an issue and you’d rather not have your email exposed.
If you don’t have an email address at the domain on which your content appears (such as with a guest posting), follow the following process:
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If you’re serious about search marketing, then I urge you to get started with Google authorship now. It’s going to be big in the world of search going forward – you can bank on it. You’ll need to be known to compete in your niche, and the more recognized you are, the more your website will grow. It’s self-service marketing at its best – and it’s free. I’m onboard – are you?
Nell Terry is a tech news junkie, fledgling Internet marketer and staff writer for SiteProNews, one of the Web’s foremost webmaster and tech news blogs. She thrives on social media, web design, and uncovering the truth about all the newest marketing fads that pop up all over the ‘net. Find out more about Nell by visiting her online portfolio at ‘Content by Nell.
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For me it’s game over,penguin killed me. I’m moving towards analog life with real people, not a robot that is starving of ad sales and does everything it can to kill small businesses. I will definitely put a phone scrambler in my future physical store, there’s just no way i will allow people to use android and google in my store.
Well, it had to happen eventually and I’m all for anything which means less web spam and more relevant search results.
This may also have the added benefit of minimizing the number of bogus profiles used to create and disseminate sub-standard content.
It does however, put a bit of a roadblock in the way of companies developing their content marketing plans, as they will definitely have to choose their persona’s carefully to make sure they benefit the company in the long-run.
I confirmed my authorship few days back. Certainly its going to be big factor from SEO point. Moreover it would certainly reduce spamming.
Great Article, first time read about origins of Author Rank.
Google has made this way to rule in the search engine marketing as well overtaking Facebook and twitter.
In short, Google thinks you’re great if you use Google+. That self-serving “algorithm” seriously reduces the value of Google’s results.
There goes anonymity…
So what if Google decides that one of the pages you wrote deserves to be yanked or penalized? Will all the other pages you wrote be pulled down in the SERPs?
Thx so much for the is article. Yes, the authorship and using G+ in conjunction really seems to be helping my website rankings and hits (and calls).
I’ve done a bit of guest blogging, too (on wordpress sites), so I really need to look to see if the authorship is set up correctly. Not sure how to fix it, though if it isn’t since they aren’t my sites. I have to figure this out soon, though.
I agree with Bronson…. and Pixelrage! It will all be a matter of people buying into Google + – or not.
I just wrote a piece recently about this topic. Very important for ranking well eventually if not already. It is said you can gain significant ranking and more by adding Google Authorship. Here is a more detailed article I wrote concerning this topic. Good information thanks.
http://linkworxseo.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/instructions-on-how-to-link-a-google-profile-to-content-created/
Oh well, I’ve signed up lets see if it does anything. Anything that adds for increased traffic in my book is a good thing, i’m not so fussed about the morality, or benefits too Google (the politics if you prefer), if it does any good, then surely that’s the key thing. As for anonymity, if you want anonymity, you simply don’t sign up for t do you?
Cannot agree more with this article but the process involved is far from straightforward.
Establishing authorship is a fairly easy first step but the next where yo get your image and name alongside your search result is proving elusive after trying for over 4 hours.
My dilema is that I can get it to display on my computer but not on others.Driving me mad at the moment.
Regards
Russ
I spoke too soon, they are no longer appearing on my computer even though when I run the “Rich Snippets Tool” the authorship is verified and my photo and “By Russell Turner” appears correctly.
Give me strength!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe Author rank is another step in SEO which is now completely related with Google+.Behind the doors, Google is forcing webmasters to use Google+ …
The selfless reason is that Google is trying to deliver more content that is based on personal signals. They are trying to take advantage of the fact that people are more likely to read or buy something if they see a friend likes it, too.
Whatever the reason for these changes, this is really good news for anyone who makes a living at creating content.
This does obviously hurt anonymity and that really, really sucks since it’ll inevitably lead to more egotism on the web, but there’s a way around this that could actually be a good thing.
Either create a pen name and stick with that or if you write on different topics create a different pen name for each topic. That’s actually probably better from a niche perspective since it pigeonholes you… which is what search wants.
Completely agree. I just had a coworker do a search on the latest blog I wrote and there I was #1 (with my photo) amongst 35 million other pages. Great article!
The idea from a marketing perspective for Google is clever, and we take our hats off to anyone from any company who can think of a way to beat the competition. However the facial recognition component is a flaw and is dangerous, it provides no privacy or safety for the Author, in this instance I am an actual Author, and unlike the 99 percent of the world who admire celebrities and want to be one, I like many actual Authors do not, we prefer anonymity and privacy, true you will get the ten million pretend authors who write word docs, call them ebooks and, with Bill and Ben meet the alien Zombie king drag the price of real books down to less than print costs. Good luck with it, I will not be using it “Ever” and will recommend against it on my new website and the new Australian Authors Only books sales site opening next year (we had to, Amazon won’t link to Australian banks, their several million books loss) Perhaps some whacko you offended will recognize you in the street?
If author ranking is one of the ways Google wants to use to rank websites and reward hard working webmasters, that is fine as long as there is consistency.
Great post! I created a gravatar account & installed cool author box with link to g+. Looking forward to being associated with all the relevant & useful content on my site. Thanks!
The chance that this will reduce spam is extremely low because all the spammers will do is set up multiple seemingly real identity’s. Until every one gets there own personal IP address people will find a way around these measures to identify them.
Don’t get me wrong I am all for stopping the spammers but finding ways to make our lives more difficult is not the answer.
How about Identifying the spanners by IP address and turning off there internet access.
Nice post Nell, thank you very much for making us aware of the new and vibrant factor of SEO which is Author Rank. I think it is going to be a major factor in SEO. When a user is lading to your website and staying there to read your content, then probably he/she might want to read other post as well, this creates an impression & helps in making brand value over internet.
Superb article. I knew about author mark-up and rich snippets. But did not know that it is going to have such impact in the days to come. Thanks for the info.
Wow I see that author profile stuff all the time on Google, glad I found this.