Google Authors
Yet another Google change to the rankings. You will soon see results like this in your search.
This has a few implications. Not only will content matter now but it seems that WHO wrote that content will also matter. The way it works is quite simple. We haven’t set it up on our site yet but we will by the end of the week. Basically on your own site and if you write on other sites you need to have an author page setup that has your bio. Any content you write on those sites should link to the author page with the rel=”author” attribute and then the author page should link to your Google profile with the rel=”me” attribute. Your Google profile should then link back to your author page with the “This page is specifically about me” checked.
Google Profile
If you haven’t already got a Google profile, now would be a good time to get one. Google is using this to essentially verify, through reciprocal linking, what content you created. This means that an individuals profile will carry a signal, good or bad, if it is attached to a piece of content. Your profile is something to look after and cultivate. Once Google begins to learn the quality and relevance of your content, your profile will be another signal that it uses when deciding where to rank a piece of content for a phrase. Guest bloggers have a whole other value now. If two pieces of content have equal weighting for a phrase but one has author markup,the one with author markup will rank higher. Of course it’s rare for two pieces of content to have the exact same weighting.
Here’s how to setup your Google Author code
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
