Link your Google Profile to your blog
Outdated & Archived Content:
Google discontinued Google Authorship (for web search) in the fall of 2014.
Now it’s time to learn about rich snippets and structured data. This post will remain up for archival reasons but pulled from our search index and no-indexed in for the search engines.
First, the why:
By using the HTML5 authorship tag rel=author in a two-way link with your Google Profile, you may gain a little authority in Google’s SERPS. And that’s not all; watch the video below to see how you could eventually see your image alongside your blog links in Google search. This could be worth its weight in gold for search click through traffic.
NOTE: In case you missed it in the video, you must use the rel=author tag when linking to your G+ profile AND you must have a link in your Google profile linking back to your blog. This is how Google will determine true blog authorship; much like a double opt-in.
The how:
This is the simple part. Google has setup a special page using HTML5 that you can use to create an authorship button and link using the Google Plus logo.
If you want a text link instead just use my Google Profile text link as a guide:
<a rel="author" href="https://profiles.google.com/117038250073733273081">About Brian Hawkins</a>
Are you using Google+ yet?
Leave your Google+ link with your comments below and I’ll add you to my circles.
About Brian D. Hawkins
Hey Brian! Great video and thanks for sharing! I see why you are all excited now 🙂 So if I heard correctly I can use rel=author by just adding it to the sidebar of all my blogs making me the author of all the articles?
Thanks and look forward to hearing more about what you got going on
Joshua the ZamuraiBlogger
Oh and I just might repost this video on my blog I hope you don’t mind. But first I gota figure out how to get it working 🙂
That’s the way I understand it Joshua, at least for single author blogs. It seems a little more complicated for blogs using multiple authors, which is the direction Hot Blog Tips will be taking.
I have not started using google plus yet and I didn’t even know about the authorship markup thing before I found this blog. I know it will be worth it from the explanation you gave above so I will give it a try. It will be nice for google to know that I am the true author of my content.
Thanks Charley, when you get it setup follow me at https://plus.google.com/113206177525104143415/ and then give me a shout so I know to follow back.
Finally, problem solved. I tried Google + and I experienced a difficulty in figuring out how it will be a big help to my blog. Thank you so much for sharing an informative video I learned a lot of things from it. This will serve as a big help for me.
Nice post Thank you for sharing 🙂
It is really a nice addition by Google but since my blog is a multi author blog, there is problem/difficulty in adding this code. Any how I thing this will offer a little advantage in SERP to all those who add their Google profile to their blog
Hi Shiva, I seen that on the video. They do go over multi-authored blogs but I haven’t looked into that yet. I will need to since I’m going to start including guest posts.
Another good thing to do is add the G+ counter to your main page. (See the top right of this page – Don’t forget to click me up one 😉). It’s very easy to do. I found it on one of my favorate forums at Adding Google +1 to WordPress Blogs. I think it’s on the 4th or 5th post down in the thread.
The best advantage we got is to divert more customers to our website. and just adding can easily gives us a huge traffic . thanks for your great post. your post is very authentic and true as far as advantages are concerned.
Adding your google profile to the blog is a necessity now? I read that big G is now taking the “G+” into account when generating SERP. Who knows if this is true?
Hi Chris, it’s not a necessity but it can help. Check out the video above with Matt Cutts, they pretty much lat it out for you. I’m really glad to see Google being a lot more open nowadays.
This is really interesting article. I have just made use of your information. I now add the official Google plus author button to my website and it is really cool to do that. Thanks for showing us the benefits of using the button.
It looks great too Olawale, right in the header. http://techatlast.com/
Great Post, thanks for sharing.
Am going to add it to my blog soon.
Is is really simple for single author blogs and you can use custom fields to add it much easily. But it is still very confusing for multi author blogs. Hopefully this is a good chance and something that can be used to improve search quality.
Useful stuff, and thanks for sharing the vid. Not maestros of presentation but the info is all there, coming ‘straight from the horses mouth’ so to speak…
I’m still a bit stumped on actually setting this up, G+ pointing at my ‘about page’, rel=”author markup on me G+ button on every page of my blog… filled in some form… But no change as yet.
I’m excited though. It’s a great idea. Thanks Brain for bringing a little more clarity to this ‘shrouded in geek-speak’ issue…
Good articles. am still studying every single tips that were provide…I think g+ is
not that hard to use.
Authorship markup is helpful in securing the rights of online authors on their published blogs or articles. This is a great tool in preventing plagiarism on the web.
I was hesitating to participate in Google + since i feel that they still need to gain a lot of users. However reading this post makes me realize that it’s worth to engage in this site. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Brian,
I think I’ve followed Google’s advice correctly on authorship but am not sure how one becomes aware if and when authorship status becomes active. Do you know if they notify you or if there is a long delay? If the answer is no to both, then I probably goofed somewhere.
Good point made by Noel, the subject of my lates blog post.
Following up on my previous comment, my Google authorship became active today. I don’t know whether it was influenced by the fact that I added a textual link on my “about us” page to my google profile the other day after reading this post. It seems quite likely. Anyway, good news. It’s bound to help click through rate.
This is a great and post and something I’ve implemented with great success. Having your photo next to the blog post improves the clickthrough rate by a good percentage.
I learnt something new today. Though the technical aspect is beyond my comprehension, I intend to watch the video again to see if I can improve my understanding.
Ok I understand it better. Well I am glad that I already have my google plus profile on my blog. But then i never knew what it meant or its importance. This article deserves to be on Google’s top search page. Which it is already on.