Google Author Rank For SEO
For many years Google has been using PageRank (PR) to classify sites based on authority. A higher PR site generally means higher authority and higher crawl rate by search engines. Google has been fighting against spam and black hat techniques since its very beginning. Earlier, any webmaster would gain backlinks either by buying links, commenting on other blogs, or by spam guest posting and increase their PR. Now Google is bringing a new card into the SEO game – Google Author Rank.
What is Google Author Rank?
Google Author Rank is nothing but a measurement of the authority of your blog / website over the internet. Google has been trying to provide their customers with better search results ever since it’s birth and this how they are going to do it. They normally update their search algorithms over 500 times a year (lots of minor updates and some major ones). The recent Panda and EMD (Exact Matching Domains) updates have hit many webmasters hard. The Penguin algorithm has hit most of the spam sites with devastating effects and if you are one of them, you should read the rest of the article.
Many SEO experts have complained about their organic traffic disappearing overnight. Google with their recent updates have changed the very definition of Search Engine Optimization. No one knows what to do anymore. But what everyone knows (even if they don’t apply it) is producing unique, original and useful content is the only way to avoid being penalized by these updates.
Why you have to go for Google Authorship?
You have to go for Google Authorship because Google wants you to. Google is the world leader in search marketing. With over 80% dominance in the search market, you have no choice but to stay on the Google’s good boy list. Organic traffic is the lifeline of any blog or website. To get organic traffic, you need Google and you have to listen to what they are saying.
What are the benefits of Google Authorship?
Google Authorship will provide more authority to your blog. Your Google+ picture will be displayed in the search results which increases the CTR of your blog.
There is also a hidden benefit of it which has been confirmed by Google themselves. If someone clicks a link on the search result and goes to your site and spends a certain amount of time there, then presses the browser’s “Back” button, more results from your site will be shown in the results. This is a way of Google knowing that the user has loved your content and is willing to read more from your site.
According to Matt McGee of Search Engine Land, their research has calculated the time to be around 2 minutes. Here’s a snapshot (above) of the results after pressing the back button after a certain amount of time.
How to get Google Authorship?
To get Google Authorship, you need to connect your blog with your Google+ account. If you still haven’t done it or don’t know how to, you can check out these tutorials (for Blogger | for WordPress) which both provide a simple step on how to do that. Just a few days ago, I received my official notification from Google on being accepted into the Google Authorship Program.
How Author Rank will be calculated?
Like PageRank, the author rank would also be calculated using a series of complex signals that are received by Google. Well, according to Mike Arnesen of SEOmoz, some of the main factors that are going to be considered are:
• PageRank of the author’s content
• Number of comments on each post
• Google+ shares of author content
• Number of Google+ circles the author is in
• Social Media Followers (e.g. Twitter , Facebook , Stumbleupon)
• Connections with other high author rank authors
How Author Rank will be implemented?
Google will take into account the PR of the author’s content and the factors above that I have mentioned and then combine with the Author Rank to give the best possible results to its customers. For years Google has been using PR to determine the authority of the websites. But, as we all know, PR can be manipulated by using black hat SEO techniques. This author rank is supposed to help Google bring to the top more relevant and good quality content, so those who are using black hat and spam link building techniques are surely going to be hit by these pretty badly.
When will this Author Rank come into play?
Well, no one knows exactly when the Author Rank will come into play or if it has already started playing in the background and we haven’t noticed yet. Whether Google has already implemented this or not, it doesn’t matter. You should start concentrating on building your author rank now. Start producing quality content and forget about the spam guest posting and black hat techniques (if you have been doing so).
How can I build my Author Rank?
Building your Author Rank is a little bit different than that of building your authority (which you have done so far). I’m just going to list out some of the critical points:
• Start socializing with other reputable bloggers
• Connect with other webmasters on social networking sites (e.g. Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn)
• Start sharing your content on the social media (if you haven’t been doing so)
• Start using Google+ more
• Get in the circles of the reputable bloggers
• Start guest posting on high authority sites
• Start commenting on high authority sites
Well, that’s about it. So, are you planning to build author rank or what? What do you think about this? You can hit the comment section to share your views.
The above post was written by Lahaul Seth of Blog Tips Codes. He writes about blogging, SEO, and Internet marketing, and often gives away free code (such as his free version of Hello Bar), so make sure you check him out.
