What is AuthorRank? [Infographic]

The tidal wave of content being published online is astronomical. As more content continues to be produced, new methods for sorting, filtering and displaying content have come into being. As the astute AJ Kohn put it, AuthorRank is Google’s attempt at “fusing the web of people with the web of documents and creating a more savvy view of Internet influence.”

For the average writer, marketer or content producer, AuthorRank presents a great opportunity for personal branding, but also makes us individually responsible for the quality of work we produce. Evaluating the quality of content is Google’s job, and moving into the future it’s clear Google seeks to evaluate the substantive quality of authors. By understanding AuthorRank now, authors can establish themselves and their aggregated body of work as worthy of being ranked.

AuthorRank Infographic

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Comments

  1. Philos says:

    I haven’t taken Google Plus so seriously for some personal reasons. I think now I gotta put in a little bit of work and be active on G+. Thanks for the infographic. Any other tips you have for WordPress users?

    • Loren Baker says:

      Hi Philos, you’re welcome :)

      I would highly recommend reading (and subscribing to) http://yoast.com/ – Joost deValk is one of the best WordPress minds in the world and you can really learn a lot from him.

      Also, try searching on the BlueGlass Blog for “wordpress” or “blog” oriented terms ;)

  2. Bill Bean says:

    It will certainly continue to evolve, but author rank is definitely significant. This can be a great addition to ranking factors, helping to weed out more unworthy content. I can imagine, however, a valuable, relevant, rank worthy piece of content being authored by someone with, essentially no author rank being overlooked. Alas, no system is perfect. Let’s hope this works well. In the meantime, your fine infographic may just help me with a few clients.

  3. Alan Bleiweiss says:

    the biggest problem in all this is that people have multiple Google accounts – I’ve got two at the moment. And Google doesn’t allow merging of accounts. Having to rely on a Google account to cross-connect all of an author’s content is not a proper solution.

    • Loren Baker says:

      An account for Alan and an account for the Ambassador? Or a business account and then a legacy personal one?

      • Alan Bleiweiss says:

        an original Google Account and then one I had created for testing purposes that ended up becoming recognized as the primary. Except the original is the one tied to my author email address used everywhere.

      • Alan Bleiweiss says:

        while my dilemma may seem as much a griping thing as anything, I also don’t like the proprietary method Google employs for author validation. Schema is cross-engine compatible, so why did Google go any make the author validate to a Google account? It’s a tool they’re using to force more people into their social box.

  4. Duke Tanson says:

    How does this relate to ecommerce sites where content is not necessarily created by an individual. Should the rel=author be the brand?

    • Benjamin says:

      I second this question. More specifically, I understand what rel=author does for me as an individual, but how do I convince my bosses that putting my name on all the company blog posts (which I write) isn’t just shameless self-promotion?

  5. Very nice post and this is great i love and enjoyed reading it… I think that it gotta put in a little bit of work and be active on Google. Any other tips you have for WordPress users? then inform me….

  6. Nishadha says:

    Thanks for this very nice info-graphic about Author rank, I’m curious about when exactly Google shows these in search engine results. I have my author profile showing for my Squidoo lenses, but for my own blog posts and some guest posts they are not showing. I use the rich snippet tool and for the blog and the guest post it shows that author verification is there. Does this mean that authority of the domain is also a factor to show your author profile in search results ? Or maybe I’m missing some step.

  7. Ben Pate says:

    I was chatting with someone yesterday about SEO and Social integration. I went on to describe the author rank and how Google is going to use this to determine the real authorities. This is very helpful breaking down the rel=”author” and why you should use it. Its great that you are educating people about where Google is headed and what to do to help win. I wish I would have had a printed version of this yesterday to help describe it. Kudos :)

  8. toby says:

    Hi, very helpful! What do you think is the best setup if you’re blogging for a client and they don’t want to use their name set up as author, and you don’t want to use your own name since your blogging for them and the posts? Set up a fictitious person and create a Google account/author? Or what is recommended/best process?

  9. Wow great information Google Plus is really something now days. Love your site I been looking for these kind of information for a long time. I really didn’t know much about Google plus until now I hope now I can increase my ranking now as I got some good information here thanks.

  10. That looks like a more ethical way for Google to attract people towards G+, rather than forcing them to join it while signing up for new Google services.
    The impact – well let’s not discuss it for now! Everything will be dependent upon G+ very soon, wait n watch! :)

  11. Brentis says:

    This is interesting, but lets not forget google doesn’t do something unless it serves the mothership. In this case, adding an author tag will give google insight into all internet content you produce to get a better advertising profile than what it has from gmail, search, clicks, etc.

    Author

  12. Reddy says:

    Definitely author rank is one of the important factor that affects the SERPs . Linking the Google+ profile really helps.

    Great post

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Trackbacks

  1. [...] I’ve been pestering my clients and we’ve been integrating authorship code on all of our WordPress sites since seeing the incredible results of doing it on our own blog. Here’s a great infographic to help promote authorship even further… penning the term, AuthorRank. For the average writer, marketer or content producer, AuthorRank presents a great opportunity for personal branding, but also makes us individually responsible for the quality of work we produce. Evaluating the quality of content is Google’s job, and moving into the future it’s clear Google seeks to evaluate the substantive quality of authors. By understanding AuthorRank now, authors can establish themselves and their aggregated body of work as worthy of being ranked. Infographic by BlueGrass. [...]

  2. [...] Why AuthorRank Matters & How to Leverage It Google is on a never-ending quest to present the most authoritative content to its searchers. As part of that quest, Google introduced the rel=”author” tag to allow content authors to verify their authentic content with Google, and gain a ranking status for their key topics. [...]

  3. [...] What is AuthorRank – With the maze of content and myriad of authors on the Internet, how do you stand out from the rest? If you publish content, you’ll want to learn all you can about the AuthorRank and the Rel=Author attribute. [...]

  4. [...] across a nice infographic by BlueGlass, which helps explain what author rank is and how to setup (their site also includes two [...]

  5. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  6. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  7. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  8. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  9. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  10. [...] Why AuthorRank Matters & How to Leverage It (Bluegrass) [...]

  11. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  12. [...] up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the [...]

  13. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a "know" based query (informational search) that displays an author with a [...]

  14. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a “know” based query (informational search) that displays an author with [...]

  15. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a "know" based query (informational search) that displays an author with a [...]

  16. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a “know” based query (informational search) that displays an author with [...]

  17. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a "know" based query (informational search) that displays an author with a [...]

  18. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a "know" based query (informational search) that displays an author with a [...]

  19. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a “know” based query (informational search) that displays an author with [...]

  20. [...] large benefit of having mark up for authors being displayed in the SERPs with the emergence of AuthorRank. For instance, a "know" based query (informational search) that displays an author with a [...]

  21. [...] Google Profile. To add “rich snippets” properly and receive the full benefits of “author rank“- you’ll want a Google Profile. Notice we haven’t yet approached the use of [...]

  22. [...] at these fantastic infographics about Google Authorship  from Bluegrass Interactive and Chris [...]

  23. [...] wissen möchte, was der Author-Rank ist, der sollte sich die wirklich sehr gute Infografik von BlueGlass Interactive [...]