Are you Using Google Authorship

Mary Thomas

12 years ago

Google Authorship

Google Authorship is a way of personalising your content in search results. If people use keywords to search, your content could be displayed with your profile image.

Content that is displayed with an image appears higher in search results and is more likely to get clicked as there is a personal element to the profile. To use Google Authorship, you need to first create a Google+ Profile.

There are two ways you can set up your Google Authorship. The method you will choose will depend on whether you have an email address associated with the domain name of where you write your content.

For example, I write a blog at www.concisetraining.net, my email address is mary@concisetraining.net so I can use Method 1.

If I wrote a blog at www.concisetraining.net, but my email address was mary@hotmail.com, I would need to use Method 2.

You may need to use a combination of methods if you write guest blogs or write content that is hosted somewhere in addition to your website.

Method 1

1.Create a Google+ Profile with a picture and profile information

2.Make sure your name appears either on each blog post or in the side bar of your website. You need to use the same version of your name that is used in the Google+ Profile

3.Go to Google+ Authorship

4.Enter your email address and click Sign up for Authorship

5.Click the Verify button that is sent to your email.

Method 2

1.Create a Google+ Profile with a picture and profile information

2.In your content (or on the side bar of your website or blog), include a link to your Google+ Profile URL using the html code

<a href=”[profile_url]?rel=author”>Google</a>

You find your profile URL by clicking on the profile button in your Google+ account. Do not include /posts. For example, my Google+ URL is

https://plus.google.com/106663343028568137234

Note: You can use your name or ‘Find me on Google’ or a Google+ image rather than ‘Google’

3. In the Contributor section of your Google+ profile, add a link to the site you have just updated

4. Use the Google testing tool to check that it has worked.

When Google reindexes, you should find your content is appearing with a picture.

Will this persuade you to use Google+? We will be adding Google+ to our suite of Social Media Online courses soon.