What is Google Authorship?

So I’ll admit it.  I don’t really follow Google news or Matt Cutt’s blog.

Ooooohhhhh!!!!!!!

Heresy, I know, for someone marketing online.

I just figure that if they do something really groundbreaking, like say . . . enable telepathic search or something . . . I’ll hear about it through the regular channels:  forums, email lists, Skype, Facebook, etc.

(I know people complain about the amount of emails on IM lists, but that’s one good thing about it.  You usually hear about major updates without having to keep tabs on it yourself)

So since I don’t wait with bated breath for every hint and pronouncement from Google, it took me about a month to learn about Google Authorship.

What is it?  Well I’m sure the conspiracy theorists at places like InfoWars.com will say it’s just one more piece of Google’s role in the great Illuminati plan to line out every aspect of your life, but honestly, I think the motivation on Google’s part is more to keep up with Facebook.  (In case you didn’t know, Facebook and Google actually battle it out for the bragging rights of most pageviews.)

Also, there has been a lot of criticism towards Google since the PandaA widespread change to Google's search algorithm which rolled out in the U.S. database in February 2011. The update was designed to target and devalue what Google considered "content farm" sites that turned out low quality articles. update on a variety of fronts:  crap content is floating to the top, major brands seem to trump the independent always, and people ripping off content have been outranking the original authors.    Now of course these results change daily, sometimes hourly, but the last reason is one of the things that the Authorship program addresses.

What is Google Authorship

Basically, is a method of telling Google, “Hey, this is the stuff I wrote.”  And if you do that in the correct format, anything that they ascribe to you as the original author and where you have their little system implemented, they will list a picture of you, along with a link to your profile in the search results.

Now, when I first found out about this a few weeks ago, I think they were tweaking it because none of the examples people were using in their posts were working for me.

However, I just noticed today that the author images are once again showing in the search results. 

Here is an example of a search:  google authorship

This is what that search shows for me today, August 27th, 2011, without being logged into my Google account

What’s the Big Deal with Google Authorship?

So are you asking “What’s the big deal?” or thinking it’s completely narcissistic to have your picture by every search result?

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind.  Most of us in online marketing spend an awful lot of time an effort trying to improve our search rankings in Google striving for that coveted #1 spot.

Most of the time, the #1 spot gets approximately 42% of the search traffic to their site, while the #2 spot gets about 20%.  These are rough figures that come up again and again.  Talking to people that have gone from #2 to #1, I’ve repeatedly heard that #1 gets three times more traffic than #2.  And you’re really not even in the game until you’re in the top three.

However, there are exceptions to this.

If you have a good headline and excerpt, you can pull more traffic from search results than you would normally expect.  I have several sites with keywords that consistently outperform the statistical averages.

Up until about a year ago, Google used to have indented double listings.  I can’t show you a screenshot because indented listings are gone (although I occasionally find them on mobile searches.)  However, here is a video on Youtube that shows you an example.  I don’t know what exactly he is talking about in the video and the reason all the crap is showing below the listings is that he has an SEOAcronym for "Search Engine Optimization." It encompasses strategies and methodology to get web sites to rank higher in search engines. browser plugin turned on, this is just to show you what I’m talking about.

Several years back, when Andy Jenkins was still with Stompernet, he did a free video on how to get indented double listings.  (If anyone knows where a copy of this video is, please let me know.  The video is gone from all the posts I found referencing it.)

Anyway, they had a specific method for getting them, but the indented listings occurred if you had two results from your web site on page 1 of Google, the lower result would be pulled up and indented beneath your top ranking result.

According to their research, an indented double listing pulled more traffic that the cumulative total than the two positions would normally get individually.   They had an indented listing at #2 and #3 that outperformed the #1 spot.

Their method and that video was awesome.  I used it and got double listings for several of my sites over and over.  I loved it.

But they are gone.  And I mourned their loss. 

Google replaced it with the “more results from” plus sign and they will pull up a lower result from your site and group it; however, in my personal experience the multiple results along with the more+ just don’t pull as well as the indented listings did.

But life goes on.

Personal Connection

So Google’s goal is to attribute the content to the original author, and as part of that, with the Google Authorship, they will list the author’s picture along the search result.

I really think another part of this is to encourage people to participate more in Google Plus versus Facebook, but we’ll see how it all works out.

Advertising 101

A basic advertising principle is that people are drawn to people.  When you are design an ad layout, or any type of promotional or marketing piece, conventional advertising wisdom says that the eye is always drawn to a person first.

Keeping that in mind and looking at the Google Authorship program, what kind of advantage do you think it would be if you were maybe in the the #5 spot but had an image by your result?  

Do you think you might pull over the #1 spot?  Maybe.  I definitely think you would pull more traffic than a standard #5 listing would.

Google Authorship and Niche Marketing

The downside to this is that if you publish in multiple niches, do you necessarily want all of your sites tied to one Google Profile?  I certainly don’t.

Also, while this works with both Google Profiles and Google Plus Profiles, I’m a little leery of tying all my “stuff” to Google Plus period.  

I’ve read a number of posts and threads about Google closing down accounts . . . . ENTIRE accounts, not just the Plus account (Gmail, AdsenseAdsense is Google's advertising profit sharing program for internet publishers. When advertisers place ads through Google's Adwords program, they have to option to have their ads distributed through the content network as well. If this option is selected, the ads will then be displayed on web sites that have content related to the advertiser's targeted keywords. When a Google text link ad is clicked that is displayed on the partnering publisher's web site, the publisher receives a percentage of the ad revenue that the advertiser is charged by Google., Docs, etc) . . . because people were using an online ID rather than their real names.

I’m just not that comfortable with that.  

Other Questions

So my other question is how long does it take for Google to start displaying your picture by your search results if you have everything tied together correctly?

I tried setting it up for my business blog a few weeks ago when I discovered it; however, it didn’t ID correctly.  I’ll have to do another post on how to set it all up and the piece I missed.

I think I fixed it today, so we’ll see what happens next.  

If anyone has done this successfully with a Google Profile (not Plus,) let me know how long it took to start showing up in the SERPs.

Tags: Andy Jenkins, Google Authorship, Google Plus, Google Profiles, niche marketing, SEO, Stompernet