Authorship - How bad is it to use a fictional character instead of the actual author ??
-
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
-
A fantastic answer, as always Tom !!
Many thanks for clarification
All Best
Dan
-
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.
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
-
Can access my site using www
Hello, when I try to access my website using www i would like it to redirect to non www but instead it shows a sal error message.
On-Page Optimization | | Voopoo2 -
How Removing Zombie pages effect on domain authority?
Hi. Recently I got a project (removing zombie pages here: https://www.alamto.com/ ) As you can see this site has about 20k indexed page on google and it seems I should remove about 6000 useless indexed page. does removing (Noindex) these pages affect on the site metrics? Which metrics would affected? and how? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | jafarfahi1 -
Author Byline Question
What's the best practice for displaying author information at the beginning of an article? We're presently displaying it as: By <Author> • Jan 16, 2015 • <City>. We're considering making it even more concise by removing the term 'By'. Would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we did this? Any other ways we should optimize?
On-Page Optimization | | TheaterMania0 -
Should the title tag now be 50 characters long?
Hi, I'm fairly new to SEO and as a rule so far I have been making every page title around 70 characters in length, after analysing the a website that I'm currently working on in the MOZ tool it say's that the page title element is to long. Does anyone know if I should carry on writing titles 70 characters in length or if I should go down to 50, I have been using this tool (http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html) as a guide if you know of any others then that would be great and any advice will be greatly appreciated. Regards Chris
On-Page Optimization | | chrissmithps0 -
Domain Authority vs. Page Authority?
I have a couple of questions about this. First of all is one more important than the other? Also, I currently have a website setup for www.domain.com, should I try to change that to domain.com without the www? How is it possible to grow page authority yet I am having a hard time growing domain authority.
On-Page Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Why isn't our site being shown on the first page of Google for a query using the exact domain, when its pages are indeed indexed by Google
When I type our domain.com as a query into Google, I only see one of our pages on the homepage, and it's in 4th position. It seems though, that all pages of the site are indexed by google when I type in the query "site:domain.com". There was an issue at the site launch, where the robots.txt file was left active for around two weeks. Would this have been responsible for the fact that another domain ranks #1 when we type in our own domain? It has been around a couple of months now since the site was launched. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | featherseo0 -
Can I use Same Keyword for Multi pages Title Tags?
Hello All, I am working on client website and currently they are targeting One Keywords for multi pages. As I have search with Allintitle: Search query and Google display around 37 pages of website which carry same keyword in "Title Tags". I have told to client to change the "Title Tags" but they want that keyword for all relevant pages. So I want to know is that harm in Search Engine Ranking? Note: They have not done the link building activities for multi pages with same Keyword, they are using only in "Title Tags" only
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
Is it damaging to have TOO long a title tag these days? i.e. well over character limit
Is it damaging to have TOO long a title tag these days? i.e. well over character limit. I learned that title tags should be around 70 characters. I am new at this, but have a client that has three times that, with the same three keyword phrases repeating 3-4 times. And then NO h1's or h2's in the text......advice? Rookie here 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | cschwartzel0