How important are author bios to SEO?
-
I'm trying to understand the importance of author bios to Google and its latest algorithms. Some say author bios affect rankings, but others say that has not been specifically stated by Google — but it does affect the user experience. Anyone have input on this? Thanks!
-
Yes, our subject matter experts who write content have multiple degrees and belong to professional associations. The author bios were originally kept short, so I may have to fill them out a bit, but they're definitely the "real deal" when it comes to their expertise and credentials. Thank you for your insights!
-
"Would having an author page for subject matter experts who legitimately write content (courses and/or blogs) be helpful to SEO/rankings? "
Maybe yes. Maybe no.
The answer depends upon the strength of your authors' bios and their relevance to the content area of your website.
And, here is something to think about... If your authors are using their real names, that is likely more valuable for SEO than if they are using a nickname. Why? Because Google can use a person's real name to confirm professional registrations, college degrees, work history, licenses, and many other signals that will be valuable for determining E-A-T.
If a person has a website about SEO and uses his/her real name on the articles there, then it is probably a good idea for that person to use their real name when posting in an SEO forum. IF a person is posting in Moz Q&A and receiving lots of "good answers" and "endorsed answers" that might be valuable for a person's authorship credibility on the SEO site. If your website is not about SEO then the reputation earned in this form is probably of much lower value.
-
This is very interesting information
-
We have been running multiple sites, all for over a decade and the authors have degrees that either exactly or closely match the topic areas of the websites. Until two years ago we considered that all articles were written by "our staff". However, we then added author bios with degrees, certifications, years of experience, Google scholar, relevant employment history spanning decades. Within a few months after that these sites received a rankings boost that was surprising.
Now, you ask about "the importance of bios". Adding bios for the sake of adding bios is probably not going to do much for you. Instead, it is the quality of the authors that is important.
If you have authors who have substantive, long-term, quality education, experience, and work history, then that, I believe will do something for you. If your authors have a publication history on important sites, with lots of links and citations for their work from government agencies, academic publications, professional societies - all of this that you can link to, then you have built a gold mine. Very hard to fake, easy for Google to confirm, will attract links like bugs to a Georgia porch light.
It will be really hard to fake a publication history over three or four decades with links from loc.gov and important websites across your discipline and professional registrations on government websites.
-
Thank you for your response! I have a follow-up question, if that's OK. Would having an author page for subject matter experts who legitimately write content (courses and/or blogs) be helpful to SEO/rankings?
-
At this point it's more about how Google defines and records search entities. If Google sees an author bio on a post that looks legitimate, they might link the post to that author's personal search entity (if they are big enough for search data to form one) and that could create some beneficial piggyback traffic for the publisher. But they're not really considered a distinct, separate thing in the way that people often reference them. It's no different to writing a news post about Coca Cola and then the post temporarily appears for Coca Cola's main brand term for a bit (in universal-search news results). We as human see one as an author and the other as a company / brand, but to Google they're mostly all just interrelated 'search entities' which have meaning only insofar as they are a 'thing' that 'recent search data' shows 'people care about it'
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
-
Is "Author Rank," User Comments Driving Losses for YMYL Sites?
Hi, folks! So, our company publishes 50+ active, disease-specific news and perspectives websites -- mostly for rare diseases. We are also tenacious content creators: between news, columns, resource pages, and other content, we produce 1K+ pieces of original content across our network. Authors are either PhD scientists or patients/caregivers. All of our sites use the same design. We were big winners with the August Medic update in 2018 and subsequent update in September/October. However, the Medic update in March and de-indexing bug in April were huge losers for us across our monetized sites (about 10 in total). We've seen some recovery with this early June update, but also some further losses. It's a mixed bag. Take a look at this attached MOZ chart, which shows the jumps and falls around the various Medic updates. The pattern is very similar on many of our sites. As per JT Williamson's stellar article on EAT, I feel like we've done a good job in meeting those criteria, which has left we wondering what isn't jiving with the new core updates. I have two theories I wanted to run past you all: 1. Are user comments on YMYL sites problematic for Google now? I was thinking that maybe user comments underneath health news and perspectives articles might be concerning on YMYL sites now. On one hand, a healthy commenting community indicates an engaged user base and speaks to the trust and authority of the content. On the other hand, while the AUTHOR of the article might be a PhD researcher or a patient advocate, the people commenting -- how qualified are they? What if they are spouting off crazy ideas? Could Google's new update see user comments such as these as degrading the trust/authority/expertise of the page? The examples I linked to above have a good number of user comments. Could these now be problematic? 2. Is Google "Author Rank" finally happening, sort of? From what I've read about EAT -- particularly for YMYL sites -- it's important that authors have “formal expertise” and, according to Williamson, "an expert in the field or topic." He continues that the author's expertise and authority, "is informed by relevant credentials, reviews, testimonials, etc. " Well -- how is Google substantiating this? We no longer have the authorship markup, but is the algorithm doing its due diligence on authors in some more sophisticated way? It makes me wonder if we're doing enough to present our author's credentials on our articles, for example. Take a look -- Magdalena is a PhD researcher, but her user profile doesn't appear at the bottom of the article, and if you click on her name, it just takes you to her author category page (how WordPress'ish). Even worse -- our resource pages don't even list the author. Anyhow, I'd love to get some feedback from the community on these ideas. I know that Google has said there's nothing to do to "fix" these downturns, but it'd sure be nice to get some of this traffic back! Thanks! 243rn10.png
Algorithm Updates | | Michael_Nace1 -
Directories and Domain Authority
I read all the time about how directories have very little weight in SEO anymore, but in my field, a lot of our competitors are propped up by paying for "profiles" aka links from places like martindale-hubbard, superlawyers, findlaw, nolo, Avvo, etc (which are essentially directories IMO) yet all those sites have very high DAs of 80 and above. So, are links from these sites worth it? I know that's a vague questions, but if Moz's algo seems to rank them so highly, I'm guessing that's reasonably close to what google thinks as well...maybe? Thanks for any insight, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Are titles on images still important for SEO?
We're doing research on image optimization and wanted to ask the MOZ community if you think having titles on images are still important for SEO if you have descriptive ALT text.
Algorithm Updates | | EvolveCreative0 -
Confused about PageSpeed Insights vs Site Load for SEO Benefit?
I was comparing sites with a friend of mine, and I have a higher PageSpeed Insights score for mobile and desktop than he does, but he his google analytics has his page load speed higher than. So assuming all things equal, some quality of conent, links, etc, is it better to have a site with a higher PageSpeed score or faster site load? To me, it makes more sense for it to be the latter, but if that's true, what's the point of the PageSpeed insights? Thanks for your help! I appreciate it. Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Help with local Seo?
Hi, I am really struggling with current predicament i find myself in. I am a small to medium sized business based in Newcastle in the UK and am trying to rank well locally for the keywords that i feel my customers will be searching for locally. I have got to the stage where i am on page 1 of google uk or nearly there but cannot compete against the national companies who have the search terms then just add pages for virtually every city in the country. For example my main product is "Artificial Grass" and my city/town is Newcastle This is where my office is and where my customers are. This is also where my google places page states. Now theres a company that sells Artificial Grass called www.asgoodasgrass.co.uk that are based no where near but use the power of there site to come up in every local search by adding a page "Artificial Grass Newcastle" as well as hundreds of others. They rank 3rd and im 8th. There actual Newcastle page is poor, where as i put everything into my page including pics, video etc. Still no joy. I feel i am always going to rank behind these big boys even though i am the actual local company and have no intention of working others area that are not local to me. By the time i rank behind the above type companies and the likes of yell.com i feel i am never going to be seen and fall back on expensive adwords to help me along. I am a complete newbie at this and would love any help or tips you could give to give me a fighting chance in my area. My site is www.totaldrivewaysne.co.uk incase you want to look as you will have gathered my other primary product is driveways for which also i feel like i have a million competitors! many many thanks for any responses John
Algorithm Updates | | totaldriveways0 -
How to do SEO for Google places.New trends and tips
How to do SEO for Google places.New trends and tips .Most clients wants their biz in Google places in First page .
Algorithm Updates | | innofidelity0 -
Video SEO <video:uploader>sitemap optional tag for Google+</video:uploader>
Anyone know the specifics or using the video:uploaderoptional tag for Google+ for rel=”author” attribution. for video sitemap?</video:uploader> Related post has some info, but no specific example. http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/getting-video-results-in-google/ Quote from above link: "Good practice is to ensure that the
Algorithm Updates | | Packetman007
video:uploaderelement links to a Google+ profile or a blog profile
page with rel=”author” attribution. "</video:uploader> This is what it seems it should look like in the video sitemap: <video:uploader info="<a href=" https:="" plus.google.com="" 111123738944093379428"="" target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/111123738944093379428">Bill
Alderson</video:uploader> If you know this works and is worth editing video sitmaps to add the optional tag, let me know your experience. Alternately, my site (and each page, thanks to Yoast SEO for WP) does have the rel="author" linked to Google+ for every page, which may make the sitemap entry moot, but I have not yet seen this work in that manner. If you know it does or does not work, please let me know. Please let me know if you have any better information or specific experience. Also, if I elect to edit my sitemaps (provided by Wistia.com and BitsontheRun) to include this tag, what XML Sitemap Tool might work well to add these tags properly? Seems there is lots of XML Sitemap tools, but few really address Video Sitemap options specifically. Thanks, Bill@apalytics.com www.apalytics.com0 -
How will SEO be impacted by Google's new Knowledge Graph?
With the recent announcement of Googles new Knowledge Graph, the SERP will be different. Will this present a new set of SEO best practices?
Algorithm Updates | | PerriCline0