It is important to watch Google’s Patent Disclosures as they will give you a view on what Google considers important. I remember reading one over five years ago where Google spoke about “agents” at that time I wrote that I felt that there would eventually be an author meta tag introduced so that Google would know who really should get SEO juice credit for what they write. You can read my full blog post from February 12, 2007.
What is highly interesting is that now in 2012 Google has given a new name AuthorRank to this specific tactic and it looks like they are tying the algorithm update in with activity on Google+. Here’s what I thought was important in 2007.
“…it appears that Google working to identify content and assign it an Agent Rank and assign an authority rating based on the author. Well, that is it in a nutshell in very simplistic terms.”
“There has never been a more important time than to become an expert in your own field using your website to disseminate information about your area of business and to keep your clients and readers up-to-date with information using a blog, RSS news feed, and e-newsletters archived on your website. Doing this will establish you as an authority in your marketplace and provide value to your readers.”
“In the past four months, this will be the second patent disclosure from Google that I have read. The earlier disclosure had to do with identifying duplicated content across websites and identifying which website should be the one to receive top ranking as more authoritative. Now we have a disclosure to identify how authoritative a writer is on the web. These two patent appear to dovetail very nicely with each other.”
Back in 2007, Google+ was just a thought on a white board, now with Google+ being heavily entrenched into the Google mindset and algorithm, AuthorRank is finally now something to really think about as you position your website.
From my point of view there is nothing negative about AuthorRank. In fact, I consider it a huge improvement for sites such as mine, where I am a prolific writer and a target for content scraping. With AuthorRank, when I create a whitepaper, article or blog post, Google will KNOW that I have written it and give me the full credit not a snatch and grab artist.
Check back Wednesday for more on this important topic.