Is it outside of Google's search quality guidelines to use rel=author on the homepage?

[smilingbunny]

I have recently seen a few competitors using rel=author to markup their homepage.

I don't want to follow suit if it is outside of Google's search quality guidelines. But I've seen very little on this topic, so any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!

[Jinx14678]

Hi,

If the "Author" in question is the owner or operator, or even the "Face" of the brand then - Yes, it is fine as this person most likely wrote this content anyway, or is the "owner" of the content.

I wish i had a source, but I remember this exact question somewhere to Matt Cutts, and he referenced his own website that he does use it, and I believe gave a similar explanation as above.

Also as a note (of course this is not air tight evidence)

But I actually do use it on a homepage on one of my sites, and actually saw a bump a few weeks after it implemented in my "niche" - cause the author only writes about that specific niche (but of course as I said this is only off the cuff evidence, not reviewed)

Shane

[smilingbunny]

Thanks for the help Shane!

[KyleChamp]

I agree with Shane 100% but I would just like to point out something. I have read a few articles about applying the rel=author tag to websites / service / product pages (instead of just articles). From what I gathered it seems most people actually found drops in visits to their website after the Google plus picture started showing up with their SERP snippet.

It seemed users may have been skipping them because it looked like an article or blog because of the portrait image. You may want to do some more reading on this subject or if you go this route, track your visits closely.