No this title wasn’t a pun. It’s dead serious. My buddy Arjan discovered yesterday that Google is now allowing rel=”author” markup through a <link> element in the head of your site. This makes adding rel=”author” to your site properly a lot easier, and allows me to add it to my WordPress SEO plugin.
The rel=”author” link element
So the element should look like this:
<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/115369062315673853712/posts"/>
Where the Google+ link should link to your Google+ profile. It’s really that simple. I reached out to Google to get confirmation that this would work and would keep working and they confirmed. So making author highlights work is now a three step process:
Getting author highlights
It’s a simple three step process:
- Add the above link to the <head> of the URLs you’d like your face to appear on.
- On your Google+ profile, you need to make sure to have a link pointing back to the site you want the author highlight to work on.
- Make sure your +1′s are public on your Google+ profile or it won’t work.
Once you’ve done the above, use the rich snippet testing tool to confirm it works.
rel=”author” in my WordPress SEO plugin
This already works in the development version of my WordPress SEO plugin, you can download that from the developers page. That version has a bucket load of improvements and some new features, so you might want to test that anyway, it’ll probably be released early next week.
If you’re looking for it in the development version, there are two spots: on each users profile page there’s a new Google+ contact method:
When a user fills this out, the link will automatically be added to each post or page he/she publishes. On the “new” Title’s & Meta’s settings page under SEO, you’ll find a drop down which allows you to choose which author should be shown on the frontpage:
That’s it. Let me know whether this works for you!
Perfect! I was just looking for a way to implement this without a lot of over head. Thanks for the heads up.
Fantastic news. This makes the whole process a whole lot simpler and intuitive than the previous versions!
Makes sense but just wondering, what about the websites with multiple authors? As far as I get it, the link in head will link the whole site to one author. Any thoughts?
You’re getting it wrong, you can change the link per post.
My question was not about the plugin but the general technique of adding the link in header.. probably on non-wordpress sites too. Would this work for plain HTML/PHP sites as well?
I was heading to download and test the developer version of your plugin though. Haven’t tested it yet.
You can get the canonical to change page to page can’t you? Also with this.
MLike Usman Latif, I’m wondering how it would behave with multiple authors. Many posts on my website have multiple authors (via Co-Authors Plus plugin) hope this great new feature will be compatible with it!
Thank you for your great work
Fab
It’s not, sorry.
The Yoast plugin is by far the easiest to use if you have a one author blog. For pages, or multiple sites, Authorsure claims to provide support for that, but i haven’t used it personally. I have hard-coded the rel author info for my site, but this plugin will make it so much simpler and easier.
**multiple authors** not **multiple sites** in that second line guys, woops.
My plugin & rel=author solution works fine on multi author blogs too :-)
Yay! This will nake it so easy to add that link and one more reason that this is the best SEO plugin on the planet. Thanks for the extra instructions to ensure it works too.
Yost, I appreciate you and your work in WordPress.
I really enjoy your SEO plugin.
May I ask how your Google authorship will be different from the Authorsure plugin at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/authorsure/ ?
Thank you.
This is much simpler :)
Hi Joost, is there any information on whether this works for rel=publisher linking to a business G+ page too?
I don’t have any info on that yet, but I don’t expect that to work any time soon…
Ha! Thanks anyway.
Thanks for the addition. Actually, this is used from Google for quite a long time (3 or 4 months). I found documentation for it in Google Developers, but I can’t find the link. Perhaps it’s been removed. Anyway, it’s still working fine and I use it without any problem.
Any thoughts about adding schema.org microdata?
Good that you are including this in your WordPress SEO plugin. Else few days ago I was thinking to create a plugin for this only. But when I did research, I found that this might not work alone. So, I stopped. Waiting to see your next release. But waiting is difficult. Let’s take your development version and see how you have implemented it.
Ouch! I’ve just done it yesterday the old school way,will use your dev version of SEO. Many thanks!
thanks joost i was already using this technique earlier…glad to know that it still works because using the a href tag creates a link which is visible and i didnt want that..this is much simple and easier to implement…and the bots wil find it anyway.
Great news… rel=author getting easier… it clearly makes a difference as Google wants to value Authors (Agents) more than just the stuff they write.
Hi Yoast,
I will look into it. Question, does your new stuff have in it the advanced content tracking that was promised on Justin Cutroni’s blog:
Advanced Content Tracking with Google Analytics Part 1
Advanced Content Tracking with Google Analytics Part 2
The reason I have asked is because we have implemented these on our content sites and I now have a content site that is using the wordpress platform and your plugins. I would like to be able to enable it there.
Please advise. Thanks, Mary Kay Lofuro
Mary,
that’s another plugin.
Hi Yoast,
So you are saying that you are going to do this [the Advanced Content Tracking] but in another plugin entirely and not part of the Yoast Google Analytics plugin?
Yes, in regards to your post, I understand that the focus of this post is about Rel Author and your Yoast SEO plug in. I plan on looking at it and talking with my wordpress developer group [you know them, Jonathan Hotchman] to see if we can update it. We already have the rel auth in there as it was part of original spec for the site.
The reason I am asking about the advanced content tracking here is that the options for emailing you on your web site are limited and I am not allowed to ask these types of questions the way you have it written.
I would appreciate it. Thanks, Mary Kay
It’s going to be in the google Analytics plugin, but that’s not related to this. And indeed I don’t like getting those questions through email, nor do I like getting them here, when you’re not a paying client.
Maybe I’m over sensitive but the sense of entitlement is rather shocking.
Yoast – the last thing in the world I wanted to do is to upset or disrespect you. I used to have my own shop and I certainly understand that your time needs to be compensated. We all have feed our children, pay our bills, etc.
I am not sure why you are getting into the “entitlement thing”. It was put out there on Justin’s blog. He works for Google. You collaborated with him otherwise why would he have said it.
I respect you, your work, your products, etc. If I did not, I would not have recommended we go with WordPress instead of some other platform for the latest site we developed here. If I did not respect you, your products, why would I even be commenting on your blog. Do you really think I have that much time on my hands? I am sorry.
Again, my apologies. Mary Kay Lofurno
I’ve added that now manually but will your SEO plugin fuck it up when you update it with this function?
It might add it another time if you follow all the steps but I don’t think that’ll break it.
can I use my google page as an author?
No, it has to be a user page.
Waiting for a new version of your plugin. Thanks!
This is great! Definitely a big feature for the WordPress SEO plugin. Even with your guide to implementing it before, this will just make it easier for myself and clients.
Cool and good spot! I’ve tried it and it worked!
Loving it. Any idea when is your developer version ready for publishing? (Before or after the EK?)
In the coming week, so during the European Championships ;)
During? Then you must be counting on a quick finish expulsion.
Four days later and you have delivered. Looking forward to upgrading and discovering all those new features. :-)
Where to set this in the current development version?
On each users profile page there’s a new Google+ input field under the other contact methods. Should have made that clear indeed, will adapt the article!
Updated the article :)
Oh! Yes! It’s there. BTW, I had made a mistake. I went to the plugin page, instead of downloading the development version, I downloaded the current version and updated!
Now it works great! Just need to be make sure that your Google Plus profile should link to your website/blog under “Other Profiles” or “Contributor to”.
It’s good to be in one great Plugin instead using a different plugin. Thanks a lot.
It needs to be under “contributor to” :)
It works for me under “Other Profiles”
Ah, this is so much simpler than going through the process of linking to author pages then linking to G+
Anything that makes rel=author easier to implement is very welcome! Thanks for adding this to your already fantastic plugin! I’ll wait for the official version rather than install the developer, but happy to know it’s in there.
Great! I came across your post via your Facebook page. Thanks for sharing this useful update.
Hi,
great news! Thanks for sharing! One simple question: Is necessary add /posts/ at the end of the url ? The old way come with only the ID number.
Thanks!
Another important point to notice is that the author name of your Google+ account should be exactly the same as your author name on your blog. Else, it will not work.
Good point Oscar. Google is certainly very stict about use of your real name instead of an aliase.
Congrats once again Joost on yet another great update to an already great plug-in
Is that the case? I’ve wondered why Google won’t use my author image despite passing the rich snippet test for almost two months now.
So how does it work if you add the nickname you publish under to your G+ profile? Would Ryan “Goob” Eubanks trigger the match or would I have to start publishing under Ryan “Goob” Eubanks exactly instead of just Goob?
Just wanted to follow up on this point: It appears that the real name, G+ name, WP name needing to all be the same isn’t 100%. Google finally picked up my author image in their search results despite the fact that I blog under the “Goob” alias.
Finally showing up in Belgium too. Did it with (a filthy approach) the humans.txt in the header :) http://www.driesbultynck.be/seo/rel-author-hack/ (dutch article). Something different. Thought I’d give it a shot and it works as well. Not showing up most of the time, sometimes.
Do you think there would be any value in a company utilizing this on their blog? Seems to me this is a great way to protect your content from being scraped and outranked but the issue for companies is that employees come and go. There should be a way to claim authorship for businesses, too.
Sitewide meta settings has a bug
When i uncheck this: Use meta keywords tag?
It saves it as checked
Hi Brad, are you running any other plugins? I’m kind of failing to reproduce this…
Yeah about 20 others. Could be the keyword density checker plugin but i guess its no big deal if its on because i’m not using any meta keywords. Not why why anyone would.
Good ;)
I have a question about one of your plugins that i emailed you about but haven’t seen a reply. Can i post it here?
No, please use the forums.
I can’t find the setting that allows me to ensure my +1′s are public, does anyone know where it is?
Click on edit profile in Google+ and then the +1′s button; like this: http://uploads.yoast.nl/plus-1-public-20120610-065357.png
I implemented this a couple of weeks ago with a plugin and it seems to be working. I also just last week set up some publisher mark up as well but am a bit confused at the difference between the two and how they do/do not complement each other.
The publisher mark up is my brand and the author mark up is me. Obviously author mark up goes to my G profile and publisher markl up links to myu places/G+
Both are weak in terms of profiles as I have not been networking at all through Google + so now which one should I be putting my time into? increasing the amount of circles I am in as an author or increasing the activity on my places/G+ business page?
I can see the importance of author markup but I am a bit stumped at the publisher part – seems I am going to be duplicating a lot of work trying to improve both profiles – or maybe I am just completely misunderstanding a lot of this?
I finally got this through my head. Great work.
Cheers!
Can anyone suggest how I could use the authorship tag for static pages? Most small business websites have one author and all of the pages are static. Thanks
You can use this method to add it to the
of those pages, right?I know you’ve already heard this 50 times but…
THANK YOU YOAST!!!!
I was thinking of hiring someone to set up my authorship for me, but honestly … Believe it or not … I had a feeling you “Yoast” (Joost) would make this simpler via your SEO Plugin! To which I’m a rock solid convert ;)
Thanks Dude!!
Gary Anderson II
aka- @GanderCo
tq yoast. can i link to google+ page instead of profile?
No.
When I use the rich snippet tool of webmasters, it shows my picture, but same in not true for the normal google search. Will it take some time to work there ?
Yes it might take a while.
Mine took 2 weeks before it was displayed on the normal search.
Hi, what would be the pros and cons of using this method instead of the rich snipped from http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets ? Or maybe they can be used together?
Thanks
Oops, wrong link. I meant this: https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/personal-config
Hey Joost, I’m using your WordPress SEO Plugin on a 3 month old site. I noticed the other day that Google has only indexed my site’s POSTS, and not its PAGES, so the homepage, contact us, etc. have not been indexed.
I have the following settings selected in the Indexation module of your SEO plugin.
Indexation Rules:
- Subpages of archives and taxonomies
- Author Archives
- Post Formats archives
Archive Settings:
- Disable the author archives
- Disable the date-based archives
- Disable the post format archives
Apart from those shown above, everything else is left unchecked. Is one of the above selected settings the reason why my PAGES are not being indexed? Sorry if I am missing something obvious, I’m a newbie.
Does this look like a support forum to you? Thought so, that’s because it isn’t one. Please use the appropriate forums.
Just after I sent this I remembered about the wp support forums! Doh! Excuse my newbieness :).
wow.. this is amazing! Just needed a small help. can I use my google+ page as the author page using this?
I’m using another method to let Google know about the authority, it’s just put a link to my Google+ profile in the page. But I love the idea of using the link tag in the header. Look forward to new version of your plugin (sorry, I don’t like betas).
Great – Now even I can get rel=”author” on my page :D
It dosnt get any easier than this..
One wish: it’s possible to choose by default to disallow indexing Tags, and select thats Tags what I like to allow indexing?
Thx for this great plugin.
maybe I’m daft, but what do you mean by making +1′s public? I’m not seeing anything like that in my Google+ settings.
Thanks!
I love this, thx a lot! :)
This saves so much time thanks for the heads up – just implemented it on three sites within 5 minutes where before it was a headache!
For your next plugin update will you be supporting video sitemaps?
Just another reason why I love your plugin. Thanks for the constant improvements – anxious to try this one when it’s released. I love all of the spam comments my que catches from other SEO plugins claiming I should switch to them for improved SEO. Funny…they found me without looking so the Yoast plugin must be doing something right!
This is awesome! Thanks, it worked for my instantly!
Hey Joost, I don’t see the “Author metadata” dropdown under “Titles and Metas”. Can you help? Thanks – Paul
I am having this same issue.
I’m not seeing it either.
Love the plugin! just downloaded the latest version but I can’t find the author meta data dropdown for the home page either. Did this functionality make it into this version or should I download the dev version? many thanks
Thanks for adding this Joost; your SEO plugin rocks even more now. Cheers, Graham
How does this plugin work for a multi author site like ours? (50+ authors)
We’ve added Google+ profile links (https://plus.google.com/11530116555096205xxxx/about) to all the 50 authors..
Then it just works!
Ah cool! We don’t need to do the author=rel and calling the G+ profile url of the author on his post URL?
Super cool! Thanks.
No, it’ll add that to the
<head>automatically.Alright, so I don’t have to choose any author from the drop down list Author Metadata right?
No that’s just for the homepage.
I’m running the latest version of wp and the seo plugin. This issue has been around for months now on my blog and i’m unable to figure it out why. pls check – view-source:http://www.socialsamosa.com/ the meta is doubling up twice.. and is affecting facebook ogp plugin also.
I’ve entered the site title etc in the theme option and the seo plugin. screenshots here -
http://i.imgur.com/Gi5zv.png and http://i.imgur.com/fkiFu.png
Can anyone help me with this? anyone else faced this issue?
SO, I just removed that title and seems to work ok. the post title appears only once. The posts when shared on other platforms still show site title and not the post excerpt :-|
I just upgraded WordPress SEO and used the built-in feature for running the rel=”author” through the head and then checked it in the Rich Snippets Testing Tool, and I can confirm that it works like a charm. Much nicer than having to have an anchored linked to your Google+ page on your author page.
It works perfect! Thank you for the update.
Yes it works like a charm. Now I can remove one plugin from my website that exclusively used for google authorship.
Great Joost!
It works!!! Thank you
This is a no fail, I’ve been reading a lot of other posts on how to do this and I couldn’t get any of them to work – this worked on the first attempt! Nice job.
Handy, would it be handy to just create a profile because people at the company change once in a while?
No, Google wants to connect it to real people, not companies.
Great update for WordPress SEO. Really appreciate the new features inluding rel=author as well as the features to remove generator, RSS links etc from head content.
Will using a shortened URL for G+, like Gplus.to, work with this?
No it won’t…
Ok, thanks for the super quick response Joost. Loving the plugin btw. :)
I really do like your work Joost, I run a non profit charity site and as soon as we can get some more funding happening I will have my credit card give you a vote.
Hi Yoast, great new feature. Would this also work if (a) the GooglePlus link points to a business page (not an actual individual’s page) or (b) would one need to use rel=publisher in these cases? Many thanks, I love the plugin.
No, that wouldn’t work.
Yoast I continue to be thankful and amazed at your wonderful plugin. Thank you for being one step ahead of me and getting the REL=author added for Google+ What a big impact this will have more clients with just a short change. Way to go!!! I would hug you if there wasn’t this silly ocean between us!! Thanks again!!
Theresa 8-)
Works 100%. Just great. Thanks a lot for this update.
AWESOME! I’ve had to do this manually on one of my sites and this is SOOOO much easier and well thought out.
Well done, Joost. I’ve given your plugin top ratings on wordpress.org.
Should we not now be using the 3 link monte? rel=author links to the about page, which links to your Google+ profile, which links back to the site?
Excellent. That made it a lot easier to implement than the previous version.
Thanks,
Mads
Thanks for the tip Yoast!
Cheers.
Thanks for plugin. I’ll try to use this on my site.
I was waiting for a plugin to do this. I’m happy you built it to your already great SEO plugin. Much needed and much appreciated.
hi everyone, just want to know where can i find that contact info? im trying to implement the method using the plugin, can anyone give me a hand? thanks God bless
In wp-admin just click on ‘Users’, then select the user(s) you want to set this up for and you will end up in their contact info.
Very easy to set up and it works like a charm :)
Thank you so much!
thanks for the plugin!
just wondering though.. basing from other tutorials,
-do i need to have the by line “author” hyperlinked?
-do i need to have the author page?
how true is putting an the email address in the by line speeds up the process?
thanks!
None of these are needed, otherwise they’d be in the post :-)
Dude. You are total awesomeness. Your plugins just get better and better.
Hi, I have a noobie question, how do you add the “link to the head of the url” clarification is greatly appreciated…thank you!
Keep up the good work – I just love your plugins.