On Google’s quarterly earning call this week, Larry Page mentioned something that reminded me to go back and read more on Google’s Authorship tags.
Larry posted the transcript of the call to Google+ and with all the things going on with Google these days, it was interesting that he mentioned authorship tags. If it was mentioned in an earnings call, it is important.
Authorship markup uses the rel attribute (part of the open HTML5 standard) in links to indicate the relationship between a content page and an author page.
My HTML author tag is: Google Authorship Tags syntax and recommendations. With all the writing that I do and with recent moves to socialize the SERP with user thumbnails, this is a must for all bloggers and writers.
So, start making sure that all your content either adds the authorship tag automatically or save it somewhere where you can easily add it to the signature block of your post. There are implications that these tags will impact SEO, more to come on this.
The tags will also allow Google to clarify original source content vs copied content. The future impact is still unknown but I will be following it and sharing my findings with you.
