Google Author Information + Impact?

[mneylon]

Has anyone seen any impact from Google's new "Author Information" thing?
Details here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986

Just wondering if it's worth doing, or is it just going to give Google more links back to Google+ without having any real impact on SERPS

 

[link8r]

Have been thinking about this. It's up there with product snipped data but I don't know how useful it will be. I imagine if you only like a few authors over at say Mashable, will it be any good and I can see content marketeers snapping this up but if you're the only person who writes on your blog or you're unknown (to the searcher) then the benefits seem low.

However, if you can use it to game (ahem, I mean improve) your Click-through-rates, then your SERP's should benefit.

 

[jmcc]

I'm beginning to wonder if Google hasn't descended into the turd polishing business with all its unnecessary "improvements" to its search. Facebook, from what I can see and what I've read, has badly shaken Google and this seems to be a socialisation of SERPs.

Regards...jmcc

 

[link8r]

How much can we actually believe of what we've read online?

I recently read a very popular Irish blog on Social Media (they make no bones about their disdain of SEO/Search) saying that "most companies" have now adopted a Social Media campaign of some sort. Given how many companies have 0 web presence, I can't believe that it's most. I've also been reading large US blogs with posts about how Social and Search are completely integrated and therefore that search is now heavily reliant on Social. Its not. It's definitely not. We've been testing 2 domains, one with heavy SM connectivity and sharing and one with absolutely none and the second one is ranking better with heavier "traditional seo".

"I have this view of the world // therefore I will blog that its happened // if everyone believes it, then it will be so"

By using veiled terms such as "we now use signals" or "this now has an impact on search". Remember that there are some 200 signals anyway. If they were all relatively equal, that's a mathematical weighting of 0.5%. Now we all know that {domain name; age; search history} weighs heavily, we know that reviews, especially those created on a Google account/stored in the Google network have a high weighting and we know that content from a blog has an unusually (relative to it's own pages) higher weighting. We also think that site performance is relatively low unless you're very, very bad and given a high standard of servers/bandwidth with Irish hosts, its pretty negligible (IMO). Where does this leave SM signals? It's got to be lower than Page Title, Alt Tags.....

 

[jmcc]

How much can we actually believe of what we've read online?

Very little.

I recently read a very popular Irish blog on Social Media (they make no bones about their disdain of SEO/Search) saying that "most companies" have now adopted a Social Media campaign of some sort. Given how many companies have 0 web presence, I can't believe that it's most.

Not sure which blog it is but I don't read that many of them and given that I run a monthly survey of Irish hosted websites, my opinions may differ in that they are based on facts. The reality is that much of the Irish webscape still does not have usable meta data. Many new sites will have no inbound links for months.

I've also been reading large US blogs with posts about how Social and Search are completely integrated and therefore that search is now heavily reliant on Social. Its not. It's definitely not. We've been testing 2 domains, one with heavy SM connectivity and sharing and one with absolutely none and the second one is ranking better with heavier "traditional seo".

From a search engine operator's point of view, the metadata, content and linkages are the easy win because it doesn't involve introducing other datasets. Adding an extra layer of complexity is not good. (I bought "Mining The Social Web" book as a bit of Xmas reading to see if it was possible to elegantly integrate SM with search.)

By using veiled terms such as "we now use signals" or "this now has an impact on search". Remember that there are some 200 signals anyway. If they were all relatively equal, that's a mathematical weighting of 0.5%. Now we all know that {domain name; age; search history} weighs heavily, we know that reviews, especially those created on a Google account/stored in the Google network have a high weighting and we know that content from a blog has an unusually (relative to it's own pages) higher weighting. We also think that site performance is relatively low unless you're very, very bad and given a high standard of servers/bandwidth with Irish hosts, its pretty negligible (IMO). Where does this leave SM signals? It's got to be lower than Page Title, Alt Tags.....

Even the phrase "signals" is iffy. It makes spoofers sound like they know what they are talking about but Google, and other SEs guard their algorithms well. A website with an SM campaign that's totally unsupported by any inbound links is bound to raise red flags in any properly designed SE. It is the equivalent of using meatbots to promote a site.

Regards...jmcc