Yoast WP Plugin - Social - G+ Author

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

The author for homepage box/dropdown menu is ony showing 'dont show' or the G+ company page name (which i presume is publsiher not author) as options.

The G+ personal page profile does link to the website in links section so wandering what might be going wrong here that i'm not being giving the option of selecting the author ?

any help here appreciated ?

all best

dan

[DonnaDuncan]

Nothing's wrong. That's the way it should be.

Google guidelines are to link your home page to the publisher signifying ownership of the site. POSTs point to individual authors. Here's some background in case you're interested - http://moz.com/ugc/google-plus-authorship-one-critical-thing-you-need-to-know.

[evolvingSEO]

Hi There - Donna is correct. This is for Publisher and a company G+ page, not an individual author page. Instead to enter your G+ personal page, try going to User->Your Profile and adding your G+ URL. Yoast should then add the author URL in the as he describes here: https://yoast.com/push-rel-author-head/

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi guys thanks for commenting

bit confused though since Yoast G+ interface has got both options as per below:

'Author for homepage'

Choose the user that should be used for the rel="author" on the blog homepage. Make sure the user has filled out his/her Google+ profile link on their profile page.

&

"Google Publisher Page"

If you have a Google+ page for your business, add that URL here and link it on your Google+ page's about page.

I have entered publisher details correctly BUT the author options is a drop down which says 'dont show' or the 'brandname' which i presumed was the G+ co page but upon following your instructions i see that the developer has called the WP username the brand name so i have added the brand owner/business owners individual first name & surname in the appropriate fields and added in their personal G+ page url & selected the username so hope that should do the trick. However bit worried that it wont since username is still the brandname but hope now Authors name added in appropriate fields with G+ url & ive selected that displayed name is the personal name should all now be ok ?

I have tested the HP in the structured data testing tool & shows that publisher markup is verified for the G+ co page name & that under 'extracted structured data' there is the link to the Authors personal page under 'link-type-author', so presume all now set up correctly

All Best

Dan

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Dan

I would select "don't show" for the blog home page author. Authorship is really only for indivdual posts and articles.

[Dan-Lawrence]

ok great thanks, now changed to 'dont show'

i take it now i have set wp user with G+ profile whenever a post is added with byline then authorship will be automatically ?

cheers

dan

[evolvingSEO]

Yes exactly. Set the author of each post in the post editor, and be sure that author has his/her G+ profile link in their user settings.

[Dan-Lawrence]

marvelous many thanks

[Dan-Lawrence]

Now i'm looking in GWT under 'Search Appearance' > 'Structured Data' and its saying 18 items with errrors:

data type = hentry

source = microformats.org

So i click on 'items with errors' and it then lists most pages saying:

missing: 'author' & 'updated'

Does this not matter since not applying 'author' OR since not applying it should't be showing error message ?

cheers

dan

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Dan

This is another type of markup that is ending up on the page - maybe it's another plugin or it's coded into the theme? It's telling you for the 'hentry' the author and updated fields are missing. Unless we know how the hentry card is getting there to begin with, it's hard to say what needs to be done.

[Dan-Lawrence]

ok thanks, any ideas what process to follow to identify where its coming from ?

also as a side note/question , i see GWT has a data highlighter tool, is this not a much easier quicker way of adding structured data without need for plugins such as Yoast or Ravens schema creator since can just go round site tagging stuff within data highlighter ?

many thanks

dan

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Dan

Check your source code and do a Cntrl=F search for "hentry" and see if you can spot the code and any indication of if it's a plugin or where it's from. It would either be a plugin or coded into one of your theme's files (like post.php or header.php etc)

I think the data highlighter is for less code savvy folks - I have never used it, but I would give it a try as an alternative. Before you go tagging stuff, I would determine if/what on your site actually needs to be tagged too

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks again !!

As you can probably tell i'm not code savvy

Will do !!

All Best

Dan

[Dan-Lawrence]

Sorry 1 more related question re: a question/thread i started yesterday but no ones answered hence would greatly appreciate it if you could have a very quick look and let me know your opinion, link & question copied below ?

THIS HAS NOW BEEN ANSWERED OVER ON THE THREAD SO NO LONGER NEED AN ANSWER BUT ANY COMMENTS RE ADDING PRICE/OFFERS APPRECIATED: http://moz.com/community/q/schema-description-wordcount-guidelines

[Dan-Lawrence]

this is all i can see, since post related presume its to do with a theme ?

id="post-19" class="post-19 page type-page status-publish hentry">

[evolvingSEO]

Look near the code and see if there is indication if it was added by a plugin - or see if you can find "