73 replies to this topic

[EGOL]

Hey, have you seen the new rel=”author” attribute?

If you have written some highly successful articles, you should consider creating a page about yourself and then adding a link from each of your articles to your "author" page with rel=”author” in the tag.

Here is what google says about it at
http://www.google.co...?answer=1229920

Authorship markup uses the rel attribute (part of the open HTML5 standard) in links to indicate the relationship between a content page and an author page.

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.

A content page can be any piece of content with an author: a news article, blog post, recipe, review, short story …
An author page is a page about a specific author. For example, a news site might feature an author page for each of its contributors. The author page should be on the same domain as the content page.
To identify the author of an article or page, include a link to an author page on your domain and add rel="author" to that link, like this:

Written by <a rel="author" href="../authors/mattcutts">Matt Cutts</a>.
This tells search engines: "The linked person is an author of this linking page." The rel="author" link must point to an author page on the same site as the content page. For example, the page http://example.com/c.../webmaster_tips could have a link to the author page at http://example.com/authors/mattcutts. Google uses a variety of algorithms to determine whether two URLs are part of the same site. For example, http://example.com/content, http://www.example.com/content, and http://news.example.com can all be considered as part of the same site, even though the hostnames are not identical.

When I first read this I got excited that it would be a way to "register original content" with the search engines - but I now think that is incorrect. Here's how I think it might work....

Let's say you have authored 50 great articles about "small engine repair". All of those author tags pointing to your author page with your name as anchor text might establish you as an authority on the topic of small engine repair with the search engines. Then when you write article #51 google will remember that you have a lot of other great small engine repair articles and rank #51 at a much higher position immediately on publication. It would be like getting a big load of links right away.

That is just me guessing on how google might use this. What do you think?

[iamlost]

I think that it is Google either creating or extending 'AuthorRank'...

Quoting from Lisa Barone's blog post on Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts conversation from SMX Advanced Seattle:

Danny: Okay, say I do that. I link my byline to my profile and now you understand that this is written by me, Danny. [Matt nods]. In the future, I can write on my personal blog and get credit for it. It sounds like you’re establishing personal page Rank.

Matt: That’s the hope – AuthorRank. We’ll see what the traction is and then over time we’ll try to annotate it in the search results with a picture of Danny. Or maybe a panda…

Personally, I would be surprised if 'AR' isn't already in play it being an obvious metric.

Couple of points that DO concern me above this and associated moves:
1. it is NOT being used to associate copyright. Given Google's long deprecation of Dublin Core, willful blindness to existing HTML declaration of authorship, DMCA attitude, book scanning behaviour, et al I am not surprised - the world's largest scraper would prefer that copyright didn't exist.

2. as with cross domain rel=canonical it is hideously open to misuse. That may be why G is currently only emphasising on domain authorship. I note that use of rel=me to extend reach cross sites is not - yet - being pushed hard.

3. I am quite disappointed that the SEs seem to have set themselves up apart (via schema.org) from the W3C HTML Microdata and microformats.org. Yes, it is good that the major SEs are deciding on common methodologies but they should, imo, be doing it through and with existing public efforts.

There is nothing new in what they are saying, just that they are now publicising it. I suspect that it has been supported, quietly, for some time.

[EGOL]

Thanks for all of that background and the links.

I didn't know about AuthorRank (it looks like physicists have been using something similar)

I think that rel=me just complicates things. They should use rel=author as the cross domain attribution.

Actually, I don't care what they use as long as it is easy and as long as they explain it without using engineerspeak.... and they don't change their mind later.

[bwelford]

Actually, I don't care what they use as long as it is easy and as long as they explain it without using engineerspeak.... and they don't change their mind later.

I agree, Egol.

This sounds potentially a very powerful new way of giving extra authority to any important web pages you have created. It looks as though I should get me some 'Author' pages. I assume these work better if you have only a limited number of web pages included on such a page. 50 may even be too many. After all if someone has hundreds of articles on their Author page, they begin to look like a robot.

[EGOL]

they begin to look like a robot. smile.gif

lol.... I think that I am going to make a page with categories... not listing every article that I have written, just the ones that have performed the best or the ones that are being newly promoted.

[DonnaFontenot]

Why would the author page even have a bunch of links on it? (Unless it's all rel="me" links).

Typical setup from my understanding is that every article/post you've written on your site gets the rel="author" attribute on a link that points to your site's author page.

The site's author page doesn't have to have any links on it at all. It's just a page about you. It *could* have links to your other profiles, etc. elsewhere, like a link to your Twitter profile, Linkedin profile etc, and *could* have links to articles you've written on other sites (guest posts, etc.), and each of those links to external sites would have the rel="me" attribute attached to them. So, yes, I suppose if you've written tons of guest posts or are a prolific writer on other sites, then I guess the about page could become littered with too many links with the rel="me" attribute.

But I don't think it's necessary to place links on the author page back to all the blogs/posts on that same site that you've authored.

I guess an author page could list all the posts/articles on the site written by you, but that seems like overkill to me. When I go to an author page, I want to know more about the author, and not see a link to everything he or she has ever written. Perhaps one archive page that lists all posts/articles, grouped by author, would be useful, but I'd keep that all to one page, and separate from the individual author pages.

[Ron Carnell]

I agree, Donna. At least, mostly (I'm not separating author and archive pages).

I'll be going live with this later today, and this is the way I'm implementing it.

Every poem/story/article already has a link to an Author's Page; adding the "rel=author" to the link is easy enough. The Author's Page links to every other poem/story/article available on the same site. That's its purpose; so visitors can find other things written by the same person. Those links will NOT include the "rel=me" attribute because, the way I read Google's specifications, "rel=me" is designed to link profiles, not poems/stories/articles. If the author has a personal web site or a social profile, then and only then will I use the "rel=me" attribute.

[EGOL]

Ron, Thanks for sharing your plans. :-)

I like your method and will probably do the same.

[EGOL]

Here is a neat tool to test if your author attribute is working properly.... preloaded with a New York Times article with author information.

[jonbey]

I have just added an rel="author" link to my WP profile Bio box and linked that box to the footer of the posts. Not an ideal set up at the moment but it works. Using an old plugin. You can read about it on webo (latest post).

Just updating mutley with it.

[DonnaFontenot]

To see how I've implemented this, notice the byline just under the title at http://www.dazzlindo...es-link-health/

My name links to my About Donna Fontenot page at http://www.dazzlindo...com/blog/about/ , using the rel="author" attribute.

On that page, I have a few external links that use the rel="me" attribute, specifically these:

The personal side of me – Slice of DD
The coach – eBusiness Coach and Consultant | Donna Fontenot
On Twitter – DonnaFontenot
On Linkedin- Donna Fontenot

I don't have an author archives page, because even though I have a few guest posts, I don't have other real authors besides myself (with user accounts of their own). If this were a multi-author blog or site, however, I would keep the author info pages and author archives separate as I described above. But maybe I'm the odd one out in thinking that way. (Which is ok with me).

[jonbey]

On my sites I just linked to the existing About pages, for Mutley I created an aname link and pointed to that.

Maybe if i see a need to improve this I will, still busy fighting bigger fires though.

[Michael_Martinez]

So I'm using Magazine Basic for SF-Fandom's primary blog (Wordpress), which is a multi-site blog. I don't know if that makes a difference.

The theme doesn't allow you to edit the template files from within the interface so I had to do this by telnet.

I first modified the "author-template.php" file under wp-includes by changing the function "get_the_author_link" so that it included the "rel='author'" attribute in the link that points to the author page.

Then I had to modify the "archive.php" file. It's easier to show the BEFORE and AFTER versions.
The "archive.php" file BEFORE modification:

<?php get_header(); ?>
		<?php if(have_posts()) the_post(); ?>
				<h1 class="catheader">
	<?php
		if (is_category()) :
				single_cat_title();
		elseif( is_tag() ) :
				printf(__("Posts Tagged ‘ %s ’", "magazine-basic"), single_tag_title('',false));
		elseif ( is_day() ) :
		printf( __( 'Daily Archives: <span>%s</span>', 'magazine-basic' ), get_the_date() );
	elseif ( is_month() ) :
				printf( __( 'Monthly Archives: <span>%s</span>', 'magazine-basic' ), get_the_date( 'F Y' ) );
		elseif ( is_year() ) :
		printf( __( 'Yearly Archives: <span>%s</span>', 'magazine-basic' ), get_the_date( 'Y' ) );
	elseif(is_archive()) :
		_e( 'Blog Archives', 'magazine-basic' );
	endif;
	?>
		</h1>
	<?php if (is_category()) : $catdesc = category_description(); if(stristr($catdesc,'<p>')) { echo '<div class="catdesc">'.$catdesc.'</div>'; } endif; ?>
		<?php rewind_posts(); ?>

		<?php get_template_part( 'loop', 'archive' ); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

The "archive.php" file AFTER modification:

<?php get_header(); ?>
<?php
$curauth = (get_query_var('author_name')) ? get_user_by('slug', get_query_var('author_name')) : get_userdata(get_query_var('author'));
?>
		<?php if(have_posts()) the_post(); ?>
				<h1 class="catheader">
	<?php
	   $monthly_flag = 'YES';
		if (is_category()) :
				single_cat_title();
		elseif( is_tag() ) :
				printf(__("Posts Tagged ‘ %s ’", "magazine-basic"), single_tag_title('',false));
		elseif ( is_day() ) :
		printf( __( 'Daily Archives: <span>%s</span>', 'magazine-basic' ), get_the_date() );
	elseif ( is_month() ) :
				printf( __( 'Monthly Archives: <span>%s</span>', 'magazine-basic' ), get_the_date( 'F Y' ) );
		elseif ( is_year() ) :
		printf( __( 'Yearly Archives: <span>%s</span>', 'magazine-basic' ), get_the_date( 'Y' ) );
	elseif(is_archive()) :
		 $monthly_flag = '';
		_e( 'Blog Archives', 'magazine-basic' );
	endif;
	?>
		</h1>
	<?php if (is_category()) : $catdesc = category_description(); if(stristr($catdesc,'<p>')) { echo '<div class="catdesc">'.$catdesc.'</div>'; } endif; ?>
	<?php
		if (is_archive() && $monthly_flag == '') :
		_e( 'Archive page for <a rel="me" href="' . $curauth->user_url . '" >'.$curauth->display_name . '</a>', 'magazine-basic' );
		endif;
	?>
		<?php rewind_posts(); ?>

		<?php get_template_part( 'loop', 'archive' ); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Edited by Michael_Martinez, 08 June 2011 - 05:50 PM.

[jonbey]

But will Google like that method? Isn't the idea (is there one?) to provide something more biographical for the article author, rather than just provide a new way to link to a list of articles by an author?

I added my first rel="me" tonight. Will be interesting to see if that has any effect.

[Michael_Martinez]

My "rel='me'" links will all point to michael-martinez.com. I think Matt said at the SMX conference that they aren't actually supporting cross-domain functionality yet so I doubt it really matters.

I'm sure there is a way to doctor the theme to include the bio box I just haven't figured it out yet. That should help give the page some value.

Edited by Michael_Martinez, 08 June 2011 - 07:19 PM.

[jonbey]

In Magazine Basic I added the bio box code to the top of the comments.php (see sig for details). Putting it in loop.php or single.php was not ideal. In Webo it just links to the old about page, but on that I have then added a rel="me" to point to the author archive of another blog. Done same on another site, will now watch to see if the 2 sites linked to with rel="me" from the author pages on stronger sites pick up a bit.

[Michael_Martinez]

I suspect it may be a year or more before the "rel='me'" effect appears in any measurable signals. The more I think about this standard, the more conflict I see developing over personas and the value they will accrue. This time the fight won't just be between Google and the various authors -- it will be between the authors and everyone else.

I think Google has just launched an entire new field of intellectual property rights and in doing so has also invented an entirely new asset class.

[jonbey]

I was wondering if one reason for the author on the domain is to try to determine ownership. Maybe the process in the engine is something like if a website uses author pages give crawl priority, then if new post is published and attributed to an author and this article is duplicated on other sites look at the level of duplication common to the site that claims authority and the other sites. Maybe the idea is that if a site gets crawled first but has a history of using content from a wide range of other sites then Google will somehow use the author thing to make a decision on the owner.

Obviously every website can set every page to link to an author and many will do this to try to trick Google, if there is something there to be tricked. - Update; just heard that they idea is the rel="me" pages must link to each other to prove author ownership. One way links will most like be ignored.

Another thought - maybe it is a bit cunning from google. Maybe it is a way to find other "content farms" where people create content all over the place to point towards their money sites. Which would mean some people getting caught out, and other more savvy marketeers not using it so much, or at all. Which comes back to the personas you mentioned.

As mentioned, I am testing it on 4 sites, 2 of which I am me, and 2 where I use the domain name as my name (for historic reasons I never wanted my name on the sites, never for sneaky SEO reasons, but to avoid my employer seeing a connection).

Edited by jonbey, 09 June 2011 - 07:21 AM.

[Michael_Martinez]

You're right:

Linking multiple profiles: rel="me"

An author page on a site can often link to other web pages about the same author, such as the author’s home page or a social networking profile. To tell Google that all these profiles represent the same person, use a rel="me" link to establish a link between profile pages.

Say that Matt is a frequent contributor to http://example.com. Here’s a link from his http://example.com author page to the page he maintains on http://mattcutts.com:

<a rel="me" href="http://mattcutts.com">Read more about Matt</a>
In turn, Matt’s profile on http://mattcutts.com points back to his author page on http://example.com, like this:

Matt has also written <a rel="me" href="http://example.com/contributors/mattcutts">lots of articles for the Foo Times</a>.
The reciprocal rel="me" links tell Google that the profiles at http://mattcutts.com and http://example.com/contributors/mattcutts represent the same person.

Source: http://www.google.co...?answer=1229920

I'll have to rethink this. I really don't want to use the home page of my domain as a reciprocal linking profile. In fact, I'm not sure I want to build a link farm at all. What are they thinking at Google?

Edited by Michael_Martinez, 09 June 2011 - 12:15 PM.

[jonbey]

I think the idea is that you just do it on author pages, not homepages. Maybe a part of this postrank thing.

As an example, someone is currently scraping my RSS feed and publishing everything I write (including the article about them copying me) and then even providing an author page for me. Without the reciprocal rel="me" link Google will (I assume) assume that this is not really connected with me.

Then if you write regular posts on a really popular and much loved blog, and they use the rel="author" links to your profile on that page, and they also allow you to link to your other author profile pages, and if Google can trace back the pages on that other domain which are linking to that author profile, it can then say "hey, these may be pretty good too".

Maybe.