Has anyone had success with product page rel=author? Can I protect the content but dump the face on the SERPS?
-
Hi,
Is there a way to get the benefits of rel=author for protecting site content but to disconnect that from the face photo on the SERPS?
We added rel=author to our unique and individually written product descriptions and reviews. This has led to a decrease in click thru thus far. I suspect this is because when searching for a product to buy the user sees the face and thinks "review" or at least "not corporate".
I don't nec. want to dump rel=author in the sea yet for our ecom pages, has anyone had success with product page rel=author?
Four our keywords, we are the only company of 10 well known travel sites that have the face in the SERPS, far from improving our CTR, it has trashed it.
Any ideas?
-
I think the company logo or even a picture of the product could improve click through
but this would be going against google rules as they ask for a head shot.
I agree that you may be better of with http://schema.org. But it woulkd be great if you could find a way to protwct your unique contwnt with rel=author and not lose ctr.
-
Hi Xoffie,
This is a really good question, in part because we don't yet know the benefits of adding rel=author to your content, beyond the sometimes rise in CTR.
We assume that Google wants to someday incorporate authorship metrics into it's ranking algorithms and knowledge graph. (if they do this now, I suspect it's minimal or in an experimental stage) Currently, the major benefit of the authorship markup is getting the rich snippets boost from the author profile, and possible increased social visibility in the SERPs.
If you find the photo is hurting you, the first thing I would do is experiment with different photos. Attractive, eye-catching photos seem to get a higher CTR, and you could even experiment with adding a branded logo as your official profile pic as well.
If your site has a good Google+ pretense, you may benefit from the rel=publisher tag. Mostly, I've only seen this tag help much larger publishers like the NYTimes, but it seems to be rolling out to a broader base of publishers now as well. But again, the benefits of rel=publishers mostly seem to be an increased visibility in the SERPs, and don't seem to highly influence rankings (yet)
In the end, I'd recommend on focusing on appropriate rich snippet markup for your products, including price, description, photo, etc. and not worry so much about the authorship markup.
-
I ask because I notice in individual Google profile you must fill in "contributor to" to get the rel=author to work, but that doesn't exist in the company Google profile. Im guessing the "Links" page in the Google + for a company then is how to verify?
-
Hi
OK, so is it the same rel=author steps or is this now a rel=publisher thing?
Thanks
-
Jamie's response is very useful. Make your profile page represent your company and make it easy for the person to then click through to your website from your google+ profile page.
I have had quite a bit of success with the rel=author tag. I have a new site I am creating and I have already had over 30 visits through search (not provided) this week. I am trying to use google+ as much as I can to interact with my site as I think it gives a real boost.
-
One idea would be to create a company page for your site. You can then upload a company logo or other image to represent your company, and use that page to represent the author of your content. Then, any results would show your company image.
For example, look at the SEOmoz Google+ page. It shows Roger bot as their face photo. I don't believe SEOmoz uses their company page as the author for any material, but it seems they could.
To clarify, the above is just an idea and my best guess. I have not implemented this practice.
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
-
Different Font of Meta Titles in SERP
Hi there, Does anyone know how they managed to get a different font in the meta title on this page, directly in SERP? www seorestart cz It's even differently in the source code of the page (try to google it with "site:" operator). I thought CSS has now power over this and I couldn't find anything else what might be the trick. Thanks for any answer. Cheers,
Branding | | benesmartin
Martin0 -
Really, what are the benefits of creating a Google Brand page for an e-commerce site?
We have a jewellery store client who already have a Google My Business page set up for its store front business. Should we also create a Google Brand page for its e-commerce site (which has a different business name to the jewellery store)? This client already has a pretty robust Facebook profile. Is it worth it maintaining a Brand page then - since it targets Google plus users?
Branding | | Gavo
And what are the chances of a Brand page appearing on search results when you're not a Nike or a Calvin Klein? Thanks heaps in anticipation of your response.0 -
Why my website did not gets Google page ranking Yet.. Any Suggestions about Moz DA or PA
Hello Mozer, my Website url is :- http://www.blackbowchauffeur.com.au/ is any suggestions regarding Google Page Ranking or MOZ DA or PA...
Branding | | blackbowchauffeur0 -
Auto Complete misspells our brand. Can we do anything about it?
Howdy! Let's say our French client's name is "Something Réseau". When we type in "Something" in Google, we're suggested "Something Réso" which sounds the same but is incorrect. In the past year, the correct name has sent +21,000 branded keywords visits, whereas the incorrect has sent shy of 800. The brand is not new. Anything we can do about it? Thanks!
Branding | | AxialDev0 -
Can i link my rel=publisher to a number of relevant microsites ?
We have linked our Google plus company profile to our main website and setup a rel=publisher authorship which appears and works fine in the SERPS as we regularly create Google plus posts about our industry and products. We also gain some good traffic through some of our smaller product specific micro sites so i wanted to setup our publisher markup for these also as some of our posts are relevant to these products. I setup the rel=publisher on one of these , but the Google snippet testing tool says that the rel publisher is unverified. Is this Google's way of saying i cannot use the same Google plus company profile across multiple sites My question is: Does Google not allow you to display the same Google plus rel publisher profile for multiple websites ? or is the there a problem with how i am marking up my micro sites ? has anybody tried this ?
Branding | | Antony_Towle0 -
How to encourage Google to recognize us as a "brand" in the Organic SERPS
You've probably seen that for some searches (most commonly for specific product types) that Google offers something like the following in the SERPS: Related searches for widgets: | Stores: | Widgetland Widgetworld Widgetbarn Amazon |
Branding | | PathMarketing
| Brands: | Widgetdog Superwidgets Widgey | I'm working with a reputable brand of widgets - they're not just a supplier or a retailer, but a company that designs and builds its own. Does anyone know how Google decides which brands are worthy of being recognized in these related searches, and how I can encourage them to recognize our brand similarly? So far I've done the following: Knowem.com brand protection Add products to Amazon Sell our products on eBay List our products on Google Shopping In other words, do what a popular brand would do - appear in many channels, with a large and diverse footprint. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing, and how to help a brand get recognized as a brand?5 -
Does a +1 or Share appear in SERPs site-wide, or only for the page that is specifically shared?
Take the example Danny Sullivan posted: http://searchengineland.com/how-being-friends-on-google-leads-to-better-rankings-87376 In this case, Ford shared www.ford.com, and its friends and followers see that in the SERPs. Hoever, how does that compare with, say, sharing http://www.ford.com/cars/mustang/? Does the entire domain reap the benefit, or just that page? Would people see a "Ford shared this" beneath a search result pointing to ford.com (the home page), even if Ford had only shared this specific interior page? Or is it too soon to know for sure how this is all going to work?
Branding | | kpclaypool0 -
Travel agents are creating Google Place pages for our properties - is this a bad thing?
I'm currently trying to develop a clear understanding and policy for my company on how we deal with Google place pages, specifically where we stand on places pages being created by our agents. We run a business in the travel industry with a number of locations around the world. Our services are sold via travel agents. Naturally, we set up places pages for each of our locations but recently we've noticed agents setting up places pages for these locations with different titles & their own contact details (same address though). In one case we've received verification postcards which we've been asked to pass on. The pages are set up in 'good faith' to promote business in the agents respective countries and languages but i'm concerned that we are ending up with multiple pages for the same location, hurting our brand, losing our own pages through being buried and ending up with our account being suspended at some point down the line. There are a number of terms on Google guideline page, in particular, this one: "Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts." I contacted my Adwords account manager but didn't get a very clear response on this. What i'm looking for is some 3rd party, definitive advice/opinions on this scenario. Should we be asking agents not to create place pages? Why should they list.. could it end up hurting both of us? Are there pros and cons to this or is it a clear cut case?
Branding | | seoec0