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I heard in the latest Matt Cutts webmaster video that Google is trying to shift towards a non-anonymous web with the use of rel=author. However, how many people really use Google+?!?!

I, for example, use Facebook and Twitter, but not Google+. Can I make use of rel=author or is it reserved exclusively for Google+ users?

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asked whether rel=author is tied to a particular social network; and raised the earlier behavior and adoption questions. Short update and practical next steps for readers landing here later: search engines no longer rely on the old authorship approach that was oriented around social profiles. The current, supported way to signal authorship for content is schema.org markup (preferably JSON‑LD) using the author property on Article/BlogPosting types — see Google’s guidance for Article structured data and the schema.org author property for details.

A minimal JSON‑LD example that communicates an author to search engines:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "Example headline",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Jane Doe",
    "url": "https://example.com/author/jane-doe"
  },
  "datePublished": "2023-01-01"
}

Practical checklist

  • Add clear, crawlable author pages with the author name visible; link articles to that page and include matching structured data.
  • Put author markup on the article itself (JSON‑LD is easiest) and on the author page where appropriate.
  • Validate with Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator to catch syntax or property errors (Google Article docs, schema.org/author, Rich Results Test).
  • Note: structured data helps communicate authorship but does not guarantee special SERP treatment or affect ranking directly.

This brings the thread up to date without relying on network-specific profile tricks.

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Member Avatar for pritaeas

From what I understood (when I started using it) it's linking only to public Google profiles (with a personal picture). May have changed in the meantime.

Member Avatar for happygeek

Although I have a Google+ account, and share editorial links there, I do not actually use it as a social network like I do Facebook and, to a lesser extent these days as 140 characters just ain't enough, Twitter. In fact, I don't know a single person who is using G+ as their primary social network or even secondary for that matter. I think LinkedIn probably has more genuine participation, and that's saying something. Truth is that Facebook has the momentum and while plenty of us criticise it, quite rightly, it's hard to start with a new social network in any meaningful way when you network of friends is still on Facebook.

Member Avatar for Dani

Pritaeas, it definitely still does that, but I was wondering (and perhaps, hoping) that it expanded its usage to Facebook and Twitter to make it more, well, practical.

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