Rel="author" - This could be KickAss!

[EGOL]

Google is now encouraging webmasters to attribute content to authors with rel="author".  You can read what google has to say about it here and here.

A quote from one of google's articles....

When Google has information about who wrote a piece of content on the web, we may look at it as a signal to help us determine the relevance of that page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, though, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality.

I am guessing that google might use it like this.....  If you have several highly successful articles about "widgets", your author link on each of them will let google know that you are a widget expert.  Then when you write future articles about widgets, google will rank them much higher than normal - because google knows you are an authority on that topic.

If it works this way the rel="author" attribute could be the equivalent of a big load of backlinks for highly qualified authors.

What do you think about this? Valuable?

Also, do you think that there is any way that google could be using this as a "content registry" that will foil some attempts at content theft and content spinning?

Any ideas welcome!  Thanks!

[malachiii]

I actually have similar questions about this.  The company I work for hosts a blog that is also syndicated across 4 to 5 other websites.  The other sites have bigger reach on the web and our blog isn't getting much direct traffic out of this.  I have a feeling adding the author tags to our content will eventually pay off to show that the content is being originated on our site and then syndicated.  I am interested / excited to see other ways this will be used.  I think its a great fix for the scraping issue and will hopefully prevent needing panda updates X.X

[EGOL]

This might be helpful for you, especially if you can get the syndication sites to place author tags on the blog posts.

rel=canonical might also be worth investigating.

I am also confused about this.  I'd like to see more information from Google on exactly how these will be used - especially in cross-domain situations.

[MarieHaynes]

When I read it, I understood it to mean that the author tag was telling google that I was the original author.  (I actually thought of you EGOL as I know you have been pushing for a content registry).  Now, if someone steals my stuff I wouldn't expect them to put a rel author on it.  However, I can see a few ways that the tag may be helpful:

-I recently had someone want to publish one of my articles on their site.  I said no because I didn't want there to be duplicates of my stuff online.  But, perhaps with rel author I could let another site publish my site as long as it is credited to me.  Then, Google will know that my site deserves to be the top listing for this content.

-If I have stuff that I know scrapers are going to get, I can use the rel-author tag.  My first thought was that a scraper site could sneakily put their own rel author on it and claim it as theirs.  However, it wouldn't be hard for Google to have a system whereby they recognize that my site was the first one to have the rel author and therefore I'm likely the original owner.  This is basically a content registry.

[EGOL]

However, it wouldn't be hard for Google to have a system whereby they recognize that my site was the first one to have the rel author and therefore I'm likely the original owner.  This is basically a content registry.

Oh.... I really like that.  I would like to see google internally put a date on first publication.  One problem that some people might have is that their site is very new and weak and content scrapers hit them with a higher frequency than googlebot.

[MarieHaynes]

Or, the other issue could be that content sites could grab content from a non-web-savvy site owner.  If the original owner didn't have an author tag, then the content site could slap their own author tag on and Google would think that they were the original author.

[StalkerB]

I think it's a good idea and may open up some content syndication options that were discounted before (as per Dunamis' post) however I've not see the rel tag do much for me.

Tagging links to SM sites as rel="me" has not helped those pages get into the SERPs for my brand (though I've not been super consistent with doing it), rel="nofollow" obviously had the rug pulled from under it a while ago and I even once got carried away and tried linking language sites together with rel="alternate" lang="CC" but didn't get the uplift in other language version sites I hoped (though it was a bit of a long shot to begin with).

I'm just wondering how much value this is going to have. I still like it in principal and will attempt to use it where I can.

[EGOL]

I think it's a good idea and may open up some content syndication options that were discounted before...

In the past I have been firmly against content syndication - I want the content on my own site.  However, if I think that the search engines are going to give me credit for doing it then I might do it when a great opportunity arrives.

[BiskEd]

Right now, rel="author" is only useful with intra-domain URLs. It does not "count" if you are linking to other domains.

BUT...

In the future it might, so doing this could either give you a nice head start, or not. Time will tell.

[networkelites]

I was wondering if this is needed?  Doesn't the specfication at schema.org cover this?  Or would Google use the Author itemscope different from rel="Author"?

[StalkerB]

Pretty sure both say they are interchangeable.

[EGOL]

To anyone following this topic... A good thread at cre8asiteforums.com

[JAARON]

I own a company and usually write my own blogs but not every time. The times I don't I pay to have them written and thus own the copy. Can an author be a company and the link point to the company about us page?