It’s now been a while since Google introduced its new AuthorRank patent. Since then they have been working tirelessly to make their organic Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) more credible and free of spam links and are trying to provide a more “personalized” approach to the anonymity of information found on the internet.

Authorship = Authority

Articles from verified authors show the author’s Google+ profile image next to the search result, immediately putting a “face” to the virtual persona behind the content. As an author you can be a contributor to many websites, he or she only needs to be a verified contributor to those websites and have the rel=”author” tag attached to the Author’s bio or Author page.

But not only does Google display the author’s image, they also display a link to the author’s Google+ profile, (sometimes, but not always) how many people have the author in their “Circles” (similar to following someone on Twitter, or being friends with someone on facebook), and a link to more articles by the same author.

Undeniably, this tactic makes the verified author’s content stand out from all the other results – visually as well as from a credibility standpoint.

But wait, there’s more!
Get Even More Authority for Your Business

Use a different tag (rel=”publisher”) for your business’ website, link it to your business’ Google+ page, and people searching for your business or brand don’t just see the “regular” search results, but this:

Cacti Landscapes

How Do You Know It’s Working?

Google lets you test the presence of rich snippets on your site – and immediately returns either a “pass” or “fail” for the selected URL (Yes, it looks like they fixed it. It was a little buggy and admittedly returned some false information occasionally). You don’t even have to have a webmaster account to use it: Try Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool.

When exactly the thumbnail image of your headshot (It has to be an image that allows everyone to easily identify you, according to Google. The first image I tried to use got “denied”.) will start to show up in the Search Results is undetermined. Recently we’ve seen it happen within less than 2 weeks, but this could be an exception (It took almost 2 months for me).

Google’s WebMaster Tools Help Knows More

Read what Google says about Author information in search results.

About the author:

Nina Khoury is a computer scientist, software engineer, data and information junkie and online marketer. She taught at various universities for more than six years and worked on projects for Fortune 500 companies including cisco, Intel and HP.

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