Rel=author and rel=publisher - what to use?

[pauledwards]

I think Google need to come out more and decide what recommendations there will be for content written by a business. Currently its all so vague, not good. Thanks for your thoughts Andy much appreciated.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

You're welcome - hope it gets sorted soon

Andy

[danatanseo]

Hi Paul,

I am in-house SEO for two e-commerce site, one large, one small. Rel=publisher is the way to go both on your home page and your product pages. You are correct in that rel=author is not appropriate in these situations. Andy is correct that Google is not yet displaying brands as authors, but I believe that is going to change over time.

Yes, if you mark up your pages for structured data using rel=author, the testing tool will display your brand image. It's just not displaying in Google search results yet.

Recently, Chris Goward of Wider Funnel marketing interviewed Janet Driscoll Miller (President and CEO of Search Mojo) about this very topic and she had some great advice which echoes what I've said above:

http://www.widerfunnel.com/events/google-and-search-engine-optimization-an-interview-with-janet-driscoll-miller

I have also appealed directly to Google for some guidance with this whole issue because not even expert search engine marketers and SEOs can seem to figure out how to handle it.

Hope this helps!

Dana

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I recently was in a hangout with AJ Kohn who was talking at length about authorship, but made no mention of publisher being used on any page other than the homepage, and author only being used on pages within the site. Of course, no fix for this situation right now, but if you use publisher yourself on product pages, what are you finding this does for you? Does it throw up any warnings on the structured data testing tool?

[ChrisTS]

So to confirm, can you show me an example of an ecommerce site that uses rel=publisher on the homepage merely for a visual representation?  I thought the author's link would appear somewhere?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I think thats the point Chris - there is no visual for brands right now. Even if you add a rel publisher and link it to a g+ business page, it still wont show anything.

Also, Google have confirmed that you shouldn't have both publisher and author on the same page.

[pauledwards]

This is an interesting debate. There doesn't seem to be any 100% confident answers, perhaps they dont want brands being the author of their content.

Its crazy we have to ask these questions, some clarification would be fantastic.

[danatanseo]

Hi Andy and Paul,

I have been poking around some e-commerce sites, one is one I do SEO for and the other is just another site that was using rel=publisher. Here are the URLs so you can see how they display in Google's testing tool:

http://www.celebratecommunion.com  [home page, rel=publisher]

http://www.celebratecommunion.com/prefilled-communion-cups-with-wafers-box-of-500.html  [product page using rel=publisher]

http://www.uniquesquared.com  [home page using rel=publisher]

Worth noting:

• All results in the Structured Data Testing Tool show the brand logo next to results. This is not currently being displayed my Google.
• The Structured Data markup for my product page is being recognized in Google Webmaster Tools
• The testing tool also acknowledges my Celebrate Communion site as having both rel=author and rel=publisher, despite the fact that only the rel=publisher tag is in the source code.
• UniquedSqured.com's site uses rel=publisher on the home page only and does not use any markup on product pages that I can see.

The one thing I haven't been able to figure out how to do is to get a thumbnail of my product image to show up in the Testing Tool results for my product page instead of the brand logo thumbnail. It's fairly a mute point right now since Google isn't displaying either right now, but it sure would be nice to be able to tell Google which image to serve up in the search results. I do believe that is part of Google's intention with the rel=publisher markup.

How about the two of you can you find any examples of people using rel=publisher on interior pages?

I hope this is helpful. I am completely fascinated by this whole topic and want to be ahead of the curve when Google starts rolling it out.

Dana

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I'm with you there Dana - getting the edge right now will pay big when Google rolls out more features.

It stands to reason that they will start to do something more with brand authority as well as personal. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't?

I actually don't know of any sites that have used rel-publisher internally and have only found it on the homepage. Not to say there isn't some, but I haven't been looking. I will have a look on the next e-commerce sites I visit to see what they do.

Andy

[Christy-Correll]

Google Authorship places higher value on sites that have high quality content created by real people. Even if the brand is the content "author," an individual wrote the content. (People write content, not brands.) Google's Authorship program is proof of how much they value this, and your brand's participation in Google Authorship will help, not hurt, your brand. Encouraging authors to build up their personal Google+ profiles is key. If they contribute to other sites, that will increase their AuthorRank, which shows Google they are a trusted author, which means you want them writing for your website

My frustration is that there is no solution for collaborative pieces of content. There are solutions to give Authorship to multi-author sites. However, there are no solutions (that I am aware of) to give Authorship attribution to individual pieces of content that are co-authored. I can see this being a problem with "brand-created" content in particular (e.g., your resort guide, Paul.)

[Christy-Correll]

Going back to issues related to rel=publisher ...

Linking your brand's website to your Google+ brand page using the rel=publisher attribute (and vice versa) will verify ownership of the page, and may give your website a slight advantage in search rankings as you build up the value of your Google+ brand page. It may or may not help your brand make it into Google's Knowledge Graph (but is certainly worth a shot!), and will make you eligible for Google+ Direct. Google is also now using rel=publisher to determine relevancy. You should place the attribute on your most important page of your website (usually the home page). Do not place it on multiple pages.

I hope this helps!

Christy