Sitewide rel author for rich snippets a disaster waiting to happen?

[94501]

Hi,

I've been looking at how various sites handle rel author tags linking to Google+ accounts to get rich snippets results. I've found more than a few that have the same code on every page, even though those actual pages clearly have different authors and some may not even mention the rel author's name.

A site I'm working on has different authors for different pages. Although the convenience of putting the same rel author on every page seems dreamy, it also seems like a disaster waiting to happen, since it would appear to be trickery about who the author is and possibly one Google update away from disaster.

Can you call a site owner or employee an author on pages that to the reader appear to be written by others?

Am I being too cautious or what?

Thanks!

Cheers... Darcy

[SamuelScott]

I highly suggest using rel=author only on pages and/or posts that have individually-authored content such as blog posts and white papers. Google specifically states that it is against Google+ rules to use rel=author on other general pages such as product pages and contact pages. I'd also not use one rel=author code when it is obvious that the page was written by someone else. It looks weird to website visitors, and it is an attempt to mislead Google.

So, yes, companies that use rel=author sitewide or do other such things to manipulate Google are likely one update away from disaster. I personally think that Google+ abuse is one of the reasons that we've seen a decline in the appearance of authorship in the SERPs and that we have yet to see a concrete "author rank." I'd take a look at this Moz post of mine (and see the linked sources and comments) on one way webmasters may unintentionally be applying authorship in a hurtful way -- and when this is fixed, some people who had lost authorship in the SERPs regained it a few days later.

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Darcy,

as Samuel correctly said, it is against the authorships' guidelines to assign the authorship via rel="author" to a owner who isn't.

At the same time, it is against the guidelines assigning authorships via rel="author" to pages that actually aren't posts, articles, white papers, long-forms or pages containing videos, which authorship can be attested.

That means that using rel="author" in the home page, product pages, listings and "institutional" pages (i.e.: about us) is not how Google thinks authorships should be used. For those pages the only "ownerships" allowed is the rel="publisher", which tells Google that the page has been published by the Business whose link in rel="publisher" is linking to.

The Samuel post is a great one, but I suggest you also to check out this official Google page (and the pages linked from that one).

Finally... right now Google is not penalizing the sites not properly using rel="author", but - as told me by an important Googler some time ago - it will come the day that it will something causing, if not a penalization, yes the "disappearing" of every authorships sign in the SERPs for the "cheating" site.

[94501]

Hi Gianluca,

All good info - thanks!

One followup question; What is the point of the rel="publisher" link? If a site is linked to it's Google+ page, aren't all pages in effect rel publisher? Also, does it do anything rich-snippets-wise?

Thanks.. Darcy