Google rel hell

[dexm10]

So apologies in advance for this question, but:

Can someone explain whether as a site we should be using the "rel author" tag or the "rel publisher" tag?

1. We don't really need to distinguish between the people who write our content.

2. We definitely do need to establish ownership of our content, as unfortunately it has been widely copied. We are spending quite a bit of time filing DMCA notices.

3. Do we need to apply either tag to every page? Or does "del publisher" just need to be applied to the homepage to cover the rest of the site?

4. What looks better in the search results? - a person's face or a company logo?

If prefer a face, but understand we need to promote our brand.

Thanks

P

[jake372]

1.  What type of site are you promoting?  An eCommerce site?  A Brand?  A consultant? An informational site.

For me, the ultimate decision would come down to what I want the "face of the company" or website to be.

For example, I may have two or three websites and am trying to build "Me" as a consultant or an expert in a particular subject matter.  In that case I would definitely use "author."  However, I own an eCommerce site where I want to build a brand...the people who write the content may come and go and I don't want to the article ownership (in Google's eyes) to leave with that person.  I would use "publisher" in that case.

I have seen sites that successfully mix it up too.  They would use "publisher" on the catalog pages and use "author" on blog type pages.

3.  I would apply this to every page with unique content.

4.  To me, same as question 1.  If I were a consumer, I would want to see the website brand for products or catalog data but for opinions, industry expertise, consulting, etc., I would want to see a face with the content.

My 2 cents

[TakeshiYoung]

There seems to be some confusion here.

First of all, rel="publisher" is a way to connect your site to your page on Google+. This can help your page be recognized as the "official" page for your brand and make it eligible for Google Direct Connect. The rel="publisher" tag goes ONLY on your homepage.  rel="publisher" will NOT get your company logo shown in the search results (at least not yet).

rel="author" is a way to link the content on your site to specific authors on Google+. This has the benefit of building up the author rank for those authors, as well as displaying author snippets in the search results. This only works with photos of people, not cartoons or logos. The author tag should go on every page where you have unique content.

This link shows you the different ways you can verify ownership:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986

Hope that helps!

[dexm10]

Hi Guys

Thanks, very helpful.

We are an ecommerce site and an information site. So I guess we will go with publisher on the homepage and author for content pages.

Though we have tried author on product pages and G displays the author photo in the results. Not sure what effect that has, but I like to see a face related to the product. (We sell information products - legal documents). It also helps our product stand-out in the results.

Thanks again.

Patrick