Authorship Tag
-
Hi Guys - I asked this Q, on the comments of Joost's blog post on this topic - repeating here, in case I don't get an answer.
I have a question of the rel=author tag. Will Google attach the authorship, even if the Google+ profile is a Company page, and not a personal profile? The mugshot on the profile, is basically our logo - not a personal photo. What's the best way to make use of authorship markup, in a case like this?
Thanks!!
Zak
-
Update:
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I starting searching on Google for pointers on enabling the Authorship markup. Came across this really helpful video -
Followed those steps - in linking my personal Google+ profile and enabling the Bio section with myself as Author in the blog posts. And so far looking good. Tested a post with the Rich Snippets Testing Tool in Google Webmaster - and it's picking up the Authorship with the photo quite nicely! Thanks for the help
-
Awesome - Thanks Robert for a very thorough explanation!
-
Zakaria
The 'mugshot' to this point is attributable to the author. So, if you are an author who is a contributor to a given G+, and there is a post/page, etc. that comes up in SERPs, your pic as the author will be shown and not the company. If you have an image that is not a photo of you (or a stunt double!) other images like avatars or art will not come up.
Think of it this way: just as PR is a measure of page validity to query, authorship is a measure of author validity to subject. (I am not saying either is or is not correct at times). So, a company cannot be an author (it can be a publisher, but have not seen logo show yet).
As to what is the best way to make that work for you, I would think it would depend on the situation, the strategy, and the company. We publish a lot for various properties we own and for properties of clients. With clients, we sometimes allow authorship to the copywriter if it in no way effects the client. With our properties (an example is we have a site on local merchants) we allow authorship and encourage it for our copywriters. If you have a good team member who is writing and becoming known on a topic, there is no reason they cannot be granted acknowledgement in the marketplace as knowing the topic. The only argument against it is that they may leave and compete against you and since we employ hidden ninja assassins we do not ever have that problem reoccur with the same employee... Just kidding.
So, over time, your increase in author credit around a given subject should be the benefit you derive.
I hope this helps a bit.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How should the Heading Tags be used in Blogs to gain the Best results in SEO?
There are various Heading Tags from H1 to H6. In what order and priority should they be used in order to get best reach and ranking in google. Is every Tag a must in a blog?
Algorithm Updates | | sne79790 -
Duplicate Content on Product Pages with Canonical Tags
Hi, I'm an SEO Intern for a third party wine delivery company and I'm trying to fix the following issue with the site regarding duplicate content on our product pages: Just to give you a picture of what I'm dealing with, the duplicate product pages that are being flagged have URLs that have different Geo-variations and Product-Key Variations. This is what Moz's Site Crawler is seeing as Duplicate content for the URL www.example.com/wines/dry-red/: www.example.com/wines/dry-red/_/N-g123456 www.example.com/wines/dry-red/_/N-g456789 www.example.com/wines/California/_/N-0 We have loads of product pages with dozens of duplicate content and I'm coming to the conclusion that its the product keys that are confusing google. So we had the web development team put the canonical tag on the pages but still they were being flagged by google. I checked the of the pages and found that all the pages that had 2 canonical tags I understand we should only have one canonical tag in the so I wanted to know if I could just easily remove the second canonical tag and will it solve the duplicate content issue we're currently having? Any suggestions? Thanks -Drew
Algorithm Updates | | drewstorys0 -
301 redirect to URL plus anchor tag???
Hi - my company has just had a site redesign completed, and our "old" site we have landing pages for a full product line. The new design has taken the content from those landing pages and placed them into one long scrolling page. We currently rank well on the "old" landing pages but now all that content is contained in a single page with anchor tags throughout attached to the headings. Can you set up 301's to anchor tags? Example: old site www.mysite.com/products/automotive/auto-parts.html new site: www.mysite.com/products/automotive#auto-parts
Algorithm Updates | | Jenny10 -
Wordpress Canonical Tag Pointing to Same Page
So I noticed on a few of my clients wordpress tags (via moz) that there are canonical tags on URLs, pointing to that same URL. What is the point of that, and is it harming the website? Is this being done automatically via a plugin? Should I remove the canonical tags or leave as is?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Should you include Website Title in all page title tags?
We recently spent analyzing some of the best SEO software companies on the U.S. market fishing for the best practices in SEO and I saw one thing in common : They all had website titles in all the page title tags separated by " | " Is that the best practice for SEO or is it just for Branding? Interestingly enough, the website titles were completely unrelated to the pages' content or keywords. (Here's my personal opinion on what it looked like: "riding on a bicycle" | Ferrari ) But when I looked up the keywords ... ranked #1 or #2 spots, in some serious competition. (So in the example above, "bicycle" would be in the top spot)
Algorithm Updates | | HMCOE0 -
Video SEO <video:uploader>sitemap optional tag for Google+</video:uploader>
Anyone know the specifics or using the video:uploaderoptional tag for Google+ for rel=”author” attribution. for video sitemap?</video:uploader> Related post has some info, but no specific example. http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/getting-video-results-in-google/ Quote from above link: "Good practice is to ensure that the
Algorithm Updates | | Packetman007
video:uploaderelement links to a Google+ profile or a blog profile
page with rel=”author” attribution. "</video:uploader> This is what it seems it should look like in the video sitemap: <video:uploader info="<a href=" https:="" plus.google.com="" 111123738944093379428"="" target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/111123738944093379428">Bill
Alderson</video:uploader> If you know this works and is worth editing video sitmaps to add the optional tag, let me know your experience. Alternately, my site (and each page, thanks to Yoast SEO for WP) does have the rel="author" linked to Google+ for every page, which may make the sitemap entry moot, but I have not yet seen this work in that manner. If you know it does or does not work, please let me know. Please let me know if you have any better information or specific experience. Also, if I elect to edit my sitemaps (provided by Wistia.com and BitsontheRun) to include this tag, what XML Sitemap Tool might work well to add these tags properly? Seems there is lots of XML Sitemap tools, but few really address Video Sitemap options specifically. Thanks, Bill@apalytics.com www.apalytics.com0 -
How does Google treat anchor tags on badges after penguin update?
We have a website builder that creates sites in sub-domains (i.e. yoursite.breezi.com) on every site we have included a badge that has anchor text and an image. My question is given the fact that we will include this on many if not most of the sites created inside our builder how will google treat backlinks with the same anchor tag/text from non relevant sites after the penguin update? I am concerned about the backlinks from non-theme related sites and it's SEO implications. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | breezi0 -
Title tag consistency. Is it worth it?
I operate a stain removal website and was wondering how consistent it was worth being from title tag to title tag. To give you an example, here is a group of keyword phrases that I might wish to target: "getting out pet stains with vinegar" "how do I remove water stains from wood" "removing chocolate stains" Does the benefit to be gained (whatever that might be) from making these consistently of the form "how to remove X from Y, " or "how to remove X" outweigh simply giving articles titles based on the exact phrases above? I heard from someone that Google is getting more proficient at spotting "clumsy" title tags, although I'm not sure if any of the above examples would fall into that category, and was thinking that I should then probably proceed on the basis of directly titling articles based on the exact keywords I am uncovering... Any advice much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | ZakGottlieb710