What is Google Authorship?

Google Authorship

If you’ve ever dipped your toe in the water of SEO you’ll know that content is king – and the worldwide web is inundated with content.

The problem is that not all content is king; in fact some of it is just dreadful and some of it is stolen from other sources!

Google has now introduced Google Authorship in an attempt to link a piece of content with an author via a Google+ profile. If you notice a listing similar to this within a search you know the author has registered an authorship profile.

That’s fine in that it might help the reader find better content, but how does your business benefit?
Google will rank your authorship, so a good selection of well-written content with your name on it will indicate to Google that you are an authority in your field and this will reflect in your rankings.

Attaching authorship to your content will enable Google to find and penalise (other) duplicate content far more accurately.

But how do you get authorship?

You need to create a Google+ Profile and link it to your website. Simple… Well, maybe not!

A Google+ Profile must be created in the name of an individual, not a business. A Google+ Page for a business can then be created within a profile as a single profile can have numerous pages – different branches of the same business or even completely different businesses – and a page can be linked to more than one profile, but a page cannot exist in isolation.
Google Authorship can only be assigned to a person’s profile, which has raised a number of questions about what happens if the profile owner leaves or if the business is sold and there are companies creating fictitious profiles to overcome this.

Frankly, I am not sure Google has fully thought this aspect through.
Creating a profile and adding authorship can be a complex process. You are required to create a profile, which needs to include a fair bit of personal information, ideally including a photograph of yourself. You will then need to create a page for your business and link your website to your profile in order to establish authorship.
I have a detailed explanation of the method I have found the easiest and least confusing at www.consultancymarketing.co.uk/blog/authorship/.

If that only makes things more confusing then get someone like me to do it for you.
It does involve a bit of effort and Google has not made any of it particularly friendly or intuitive, but it really does need to be done.

While there is currently little evidence of its success, it would be foolish to ignore it – Authorship will be big!

What do you think? Post your comments and own experiences below . . . . .

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Related posts:

1. Google Authorship & Publishership – How to set up for your own business website
2. Set up Google Authorship & Publishership – forget about the rest of Google+ for now
3. Welcome to Google Authorship | Google Email Notification
4. Clicks and impressions for Google Authorship
5. Google is penalising mass production of pointless, low quality links so keep it real and keep it relevant!