If Google Authorship is used for every page of your website, will it be penalized?
-
Hey all,
I've noticed a lot of companies will implement Google Authorship on all pages of their website, ie landing pages, home pages, sub pages. I'm wondering if this will be penalized as it isn't a typical authored piece of content, like blogs, articles, press releases etc.
I'm curious as I'm going to setup Google Authorship and I don't want it to be setup incorrectly for the future. Is it okay to tie each page (home page, sub pages) and not just actual authored content (blogs, articles, press releases) or will it get penalized if that occurs?
Thanks and much appreciated!
-
I actually don't think it is alright to use Authorship or Publisher on every page and this is not what Google intends, check out their blog on this:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/relauthor-frequently-asked-advanced.html
Specifically they say "Authorship annotation is useful to searchers because it signals that a page conveys a real person’s perspective or analysis on a topic. Since property listings and product pages are less perspective/analysis oriented, we discourage using authorship in these cases. However, an article about products that provides helpful commentary, such as, “Camera X vs. Camera Y: Faceoff in the Arizona Desert” could have authorship."
So while at this time using Authorship on non-article, product pages is 'unlikely' to get you Google slapped, you are going against their direct advice - which often then gets put into the algorithm when they notice something being abused.
You are right many sites are using this on every page, and it will as of now give you an advantage, even in not in higher rankings then in a more visible results listing which may have a improved CTR. However, as I said once Google see this is being abused they will attempt to stop the practice and make sure it is used for rich content pages only.
Publisher is different in that they want it to be from ideally the homepage to the Business G+ page, they are both different things and Google treats them as separate.
Hope this helps - basically, if what you are doing on your site doesn't benefit your site user, then you are right to question it.
-
Yes, you are right on both counts. I think there will come a time when Google will display the brand icon in place of an image for pages that are marked up with rel=publisher. I can see that pulling through for the sites I manage when I plug them into the Rich Snippet testing tool. Google, however, is not yet displaying those images.
Good luck! It sounds like you've got a good idea of what pages should use what type of authorship.
Dana
-
Hey Dana,
Thanks for the response. So basically what saying is that if it isn't in the immediate authored content area (such as href="https://plus.google.com/104609087715575652977" rel="publisher"/> in the section) then it should be rel=publisher. However, rel=author should be on authored content like the blogs and articles and press releases. This would be shown as "Authored by [Individual Name]" linking the name to the personal Google+ profile, Right?
Also, in doing rel=author /rel=publisher, only "rel=author" translates into the Google+ head shot profile picture in search results, but rel="publisher" will list the company Google+ profile information?
Thanks again for all the responses!
-
There are times when rel=publisher is more approrpiate than rel=author, a product page on an e-commerce site for example. Will a site be penalized for establishing authorship on every page? Absolutely not. In fact, I think that is what Google is intending for people to do.
The problem right now is there is such mass confusion over rel=author and rel=publisher andhow to use them properly, that right now, you see lots of sites that should be using rel=publisher using rel=author instead. Because Google has done such a poor job of articulating how and where to implement these things, I can't imagine them penalizing sites for using one when they should be using the other. Although, I suppose strange things have happened.
I do think that the intention with authorship and also structured data markup is that Webmaster implement all the appropriate tags and markup on every page of their site.
Hope that's helpful!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Broad keyword use
It seems that the broad keyword use is not very accurate. I have 3 very similar keywords: Dive Florida, scuba diving in Florida, Florida scuba diving. Why does the program not recognise them as broad usage when assessing the page title? And if the program cannot understand broad usage terms, how confident can we be that the program can properly measure for keyword stuffing?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Zambezikid0 -
Do home page carry more seo benefit than other pages?
hi, i would like to include my kws in the URL and they are under 50 characters. is there anything in the algo that tells engines to give more importance to homepage?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | alan-shultis0 -
How does google know if rich snippet reviews are fake?
According to: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/reviews - all someone has to do is add in some html code and write the review. How does google do any validation on whether these reviews are legitimate or not?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wlingke0 -
Recovering from Google Penguin/algorithm penalty?
Anyone think recovery is possible? My site has been in Google limbo for the past 8 months to around a year or so. Like a lot of sites we had seo work done a while sgo and had tons of links that Google now looks down on. I worked with an seo company for a few months now and they seem to agree Penguin is the likely culprit, we are on page 8-10 for keywords that we used to be on page 1 for. Our site is informative and has everything in tact. We deleted whatever links possible and some sites are even hard to find contact information for and some sites want money, I paid a few a couple bucks in hopes maybe it could help the process. Anyway we now have around 600 something domains on disavow file we out up in March-April, with around 100 or 200 added recently as well. If need be a new site could be an option as well but will wait and see if the site can improve on Google with a refresh. Anyone think recovery is possible in a situation like this? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | xelaetaks0 -
Google +1s Quality Factors?
It is apparent that Google +1s are becoming an increasingly large factor in results pages and I had a few questions about some of the dynamics. Do +1s take into account factors such as c-blocks, location diversity based on IP, and similar elements? To what degree? Do +1s from well-diversified and historically more active/authoritative G+ accounts carry more weight than someone who simply has a G+ account because they use Gmail and were prompted? What is the spectrum here? How much weight would a +1 from Rand Fishkin hold in contrast to an account created one year ago with little activity? I know Google has a great deal of user data from Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Docs, search history and many more so would imagine this plays a role. Do +1s from newly created accounts that only target one business or niche cause damage? I am assuming that +1s should accumulate naturally just as backlinks so if what would be considered an unnatural amount of +1s in what time period? Any insights here are greatly appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOGroup1230 -
Is it okay to use eLocal services?
Is it okay to use a service like eLocal's 'reach the web' to clean up our company listings on website directories or is it considered black hat? Our company name and address is inconsistent on many of the website directories and we want to clean it up fast. eLocal has a service that can do this. I just want to make sure it's not considered bad to have a vendor do it. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KristyFord0 -
Competitor is using a blog network - worth reporting?
Hey guys, Today I checked the backlink profile of a competitor who is #1 in Google Australia for a highly competitive keyword. To my surprise though, every single link (except a few directory link) seems to be from a private blog network. It's a business selling advertisment products, yet somehow seems to have links on blog from website that sell pc repair services, sleepwear, bali villas rentals, etc.. In this case, would filing a spam report in google WMT be beneficial? It's not like they advertise that they sell links (nor are the websites the links are on), but it is quite clear that something dodgy is going on. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Michael-Goode0 -
Someone COPIED my entire site on Google- what should I do?
I purchased a very high ranked and old site a year or so ago. Now it appears that the people I purchased from completely copied the site all graphics and content. They have now built that site up high in rankings and I dont want it to compromise my site. These sites look like mirror images of each other What can I do?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TBKO0