Authorship - How bad is it to use a fictional character instead of the actual author ??

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

I know authorship is all about the author hence should be a real person (the author) but in the case of children's books etc etc is it really not ok to develop authorship around the character rather the actual author ?

For example kids searching google will recognise the character but not the author

Even if G doesnt like it how bad is it to ignore them and proceed with the character ?

All Best

Dan

[TomRayner]

Hi Dan

In principle, I don't think it's bad at all. In fact, I actually think it's a great idea.  If kids were searching online and there favourite kids show came up as an author, it attracts their click to that link, which can be a great thing.  Bit of a throwback, but if there was a clarissaexplainsitall.com and an authorship photo of Clarissa/Melissa John Hart appearing next to it - I think that's awesome for both branding and relevancy.

However, in reality this is just not practical - because of Google's vehement opposition to such a practice.  Google can and will (and has) removed authorship attribution in the past if it thinks the profile snippet is not a real picture or author and to go one step further Google can and will (and has) suspended Google+ profiles and accounts altogether, if they think it is an impersonation and/or not a real person.

It means that all the time, effort and resource you might spend investing in that author profile, following and (dare I say it) any kind of potential future AuthorRank could be lost in an instant, without any warning.  To me, no matter how appealing it would be, that puts me off the idea of creating such a profile and authorship.

Perhaps that's the hypocrite in me, as you could say the exact same thing is true for SEO! Ha!

That's my £0.02 in any case, hope it's helpful.

[Dan-Lawrence]

A fantastic answer, as always Tom !!

Many thanks for clarification

All Best

Dan