Rel="author" - This could be KickAss!
-
Google is now encouraging webmasters to attribute content to authors with rel="author". You can read what google has to say about it here and here.
A quote from one of google's articles....
When Google has information about who wrote a piece of content on the web, we may look at it as a signal to help us determine the relevance of that page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, though, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality.
I am guessing that google might use it like this..... If you have several highly successful articles about "widgets", your author link on each of them will let google know that you are a widget expert. Then when you write future articles about widgets, google will rank them much higher than normal - because google knows you are an authority on that topic.
If it works this way the rel="author" attribute could be the equivalent of a big load of backlinks for highly qualified authors.
What do you think about this? Valuable?
Also, do you think that there is any way that google could be using this as a "content registry" that will foil some attempts at content theft and content spinning?
Any ideas welcome! Thanks!
-
I own a company and usually write my own blogs but not every time. The times I don't I pay to have them written and thus own the copy. Can an author be a company and the link point to the company about us page?
-
To anyone following this topic... A good thread at cre8asiteforums.com
-
Pretty sure both say they are interchangeable.
-
I was wondering if this is needed? Doesn't the specfication at schema.org cover this? Or would Google use the Author itemscope different from rel="Author"?
-
Right now, rel="author" is only useful with intra-domain URLs. It does not "count" if you are linking to other domains.
BUT...
In the future it might, so doing this could either give you a nice head start, or not. Time will tell.
-
I think it's a good idea and may open up some content syndication options that were discounted before...
In the past I have been firmly against content syndication - I want the content on my own site. However, if I think that the search engines are going to give me credit for doing it then I might do it when a great opportunity arrives.
-
I think it's a good idea and may open up some content syndication options that were discounted before (as per Dunamis' post) however I've not see the rel tag do much for me.
Tagging links to SM sites as rel="me" has not helped those pages get into the SERPs for my brand (though I've not been super consistent with doing it), rel="nofollow" obviously had the rug pulled from under it a while ago and I even once got carried away and tried linking language sites together with rel="alternate" lang="CC" but didn't get the uplift in other language version sites I hoped (though it was a bit of a long shot to begin with).
I'm just wondering how much value this is going to have. I still like it in principal and will attempt to use it where I can.
-
Or, the other issue could be that content sites could grab content from a non-web-savvy site owner. If the original owner didn't have an author tag, then the content site could slap their own author tag on and Google would think that they were the original author.
-
However, it wouldn't be hard for Google to have a system whereby they recognize that my site was the first one to have the rel author and therefore I'm likely the original owner. This is basically a content registry.
Oh.... I really like that. I would like to see google internally put a date on first publication. One problem that some people might have is that their site is very new and weak and content scrapers hit them with a higher frequency than googlebot.
-
When I read it, I understood it to mean that the author tag was telling google that I was the original author. (I actually thought of you EGOL as I know you have been pushing for a content registry). Now, if someone steals my stuff I wouldn't expect them to put a rel author on it. However, I can see a few ways that the tag may be helpful:
-I recently had someone want to publish one of my articles on their site. I said no because I didn't want there to be duplicates of my stuff online. But, perhaps with rel author I could let another site publish my site as long as it is credited to me. Then, Google will know that my site deserves to be the top listing for this content.
-If I have stuff that I know scrapers are going to get, I can use the rel-author tag. My first thought was that a scraper site could sneakily put their own rel author on it and claim it as theirs. However, it wouldn't be hard for Google to have a system whereby they recognize that my site was the first one to have the rel author and therefore I'm likely the original owner. This is basically a content registry.
-
This might be helpful for you, especially if you can get the syndication sites to place author tags on the blog posts.
rel=canonical might also be worth investigating.
I am also confused about this. I'd like to see more information from Google on exactly how these will be used - especially in cross-domain situations.
-
I actually have similar questions about this. The company I work for hosts a blog that is also syndicated across 4 to 5 other websites. The other sites have bigger reach on the web and our blog isn't getting much direct traffic out of this. I have a feeling adding the author tags to our content will eventually pay off to show that the content is being originated on our site and then syndicated. I am interested / excited to see other ways this will be used. I think its a great fix for the scraping issue and will hopefully prevent needing panda updates X.X
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
-
Google "special" results for "top" products
Hi all, When we search for top tools or software like "top cms systems", we can see Google listing some companies in boxes. What these results are called? I know search snippets are different. Any idea on what basis Google is listing them? I couldn't able to give you screenshot as imgur failed to upload image. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Homepage alone dropped for one "keyword"
Hi Moz community, Our websites has dropped almost 50 positions for main keyword and Okay with other keywords. Other pages are doing consistent for other keywords. We haven't made any changes in website. What could be reason this ideal scenario of homepage dropping for main keyword. And recent unconfirmed algo update have anything do with this? Thnaks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
"Update" in Search Console is NOT an Algo Update
We've had a few questions about the line labeled "Update" in Google Search Console on the Search Analytics timeline graph (see attached image). Asking around the industry, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion about whether this indicates a Google algorithm update. This is not an algorithm update - it indicates an internal update in how Google is measuring search traffic. Your numbers before and after the update may look different, but this is because Google has essentially changed how they calculate your search traffic for reporting purposes. Your actual ranking and traffic have not changed due to these updates. The latest updated happened on April 27th and is described by Google on this page: Data anomalies in Search Console Given the historical connotations of "update" in reference to Google search, this is a poor choice of words and I've contacted the Webmaster Team about it. 2CsyN7Q
Algorithm Updates | | Dr-Pete12 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Rel canonical
Hi, Since we sorted all duplication issues using the rel canonical tag in the home page, and redirects in the htaccess file, our Moz Ranking has dropped markedly (possibly because there are now less apparent links on our site. At the same time our rankings and traffic from Google have dropped markedly. I notice that none of our top ranking competitors are using the rel canonical tag in the source on their home pages. We have just performed the same seo strategy on another unrelated site with the same immediate drop in MOZ ranking.
Algorithm Updates | | FFTCOUK0 -
Categories where "freshness" is of importance
I know that within the past couple of months, Google as made algo updates so that freshness of content is used as more of an indicator for relevancy, and hence, rankings. see: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/06/search-quality-highlights-39-changes.html I understand that freshness is important across the board, but it is obviously more of a factor for certain search terms. My questions is, how can you determine if your product category (ecommerce) is one where freshness is becoming more of a factor? Is there any way to know which terms are considered to require fresher results? Any input is appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo1 -
"No Follow", C Blocks and IP Addresses combined into one ultimate question?
I think the the theme of this question should be "Is this worth my time?" Hello, Mozcon readers and SEO gurus. I'm not sure how other hosting networks are set up, but I'm with Hostgator. I have a VPS level 5 which (I think) is like a mini personal server. I have 4 IP addresses, although it is a C block as each IP address is off by one number in the last digit of the address. I have used 3 out of the 4 IP addresses I have been given. I have added my own sites (some high traffic, some start-ups) and I've hosted a few websites that I have designed from high paying customers. -one man show, design them, host them and SEO them With the latest Penguin update, and with learning that linking between C Block sites is not a great idea, I have "No Followed" all of the footer links on client sites back to my portfolio site. I have also made sure that there are no links interlinking between any of my sites as I don't see them in the Site Explorer, and I figure if they aren't helping, they may be hurting the rankings of those keywords. Ok, so...my question is: "I have one IP address that I'm not using, and I have a popular high traffic site sharing it's IP with 5 other sites (all not related niches but high quality) Is it worth it to move the high traffic site to it's own IP address even though making the switch would take up to 48hrs for process to take affect? -My site would be down for, at the most 2 days (1 and a half if I switch the IP's at night) Is this really worth the stress of losing readers? Will moving a site on an IP with 5 other sites help the rankings if it was to be on it's own IP? Thank you very much ps- I can't make it to MOZcon this year, super bummed
Algorithm Updates | | MikePatch0 -
Large site with faceted navigation using rel=canonical, but Google still has issues
First off, I just wanted to mention I did post this on one other forum so I hope that is not completely against the rules here or anything. Just trying to get an idea from some of the pros at both sources. Hope this is received well. Now for the question..... "Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site:" Gotta love these messages in GWT. Anyway, I wanted to get some other opinions here so if anyone has experienced something similar or has any recommendations I would love to hear them. First off, the site is very large and utilizes faceted navigation to help visitors sift through results. I have implemented rel=canonical for many months now to have each page url that is created based on the faceted nav filters, push back to the main category page. However, I still get these damn messages from Google every month or so saying that they found too many pages on the site. My main concern obviously is wasting crawler time on all these pages that I am trying to do what they ask in these instances and tell them to ignore and find the content on page x. So at this point I am thinking about possibly using robots.txt file to handle these, but wanted to see what others around here thought before I dive into this arduous task. Plus I am a little ticked off that Google is not following a standard they helped bring to the table. Thanks for those who take the time to respond in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | PeteGregory0