All you need to know about Google Publisher & Author Tags

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The Publisher Tag

This links your Google+ news feed in with the official listing for your business location on the Search Engine Results Pages:

Google Publisher Tag- Asos Example

It requires a piece of Google code to be placed in the tag of your website. It looks like this:

<link rel=”publisher” href=”http://www.google.com/+YOUR-GOOGLE-ID”/>

Then, you’ll need to check that your website is linked to your Google+ for business page:

Link to your website from your Google+ page’s profile.

To edit your page profile:

  1. Click Edit Profile.
  2. Click Website. You’ll know it’s editable when the colour of the section changes to blue.
  3. Type your homepage URL. This should match exactly the URL of the page to which you added your Google+ page link in step 1.
  4. Click Save.

Advantages of the Publisher Tag

  • Increased real estate in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)
  • Link through to Google+ page
  • Extra chances for images/video & links

The Authorship Tag

This tag gives your blog posts the chance of higher Click Through Rates by attaching a thumbnail of the author beside the result in the SERPS. It looks like this:

Example of a Google Authorship result in the SERPS

More recently, Google has been experimenting by reducing the number of articles shown with the author image. Instead, a simple grey text attributing the correct author has been shown.

Example of Shorter Google Authorship

Advantages of authorship

  • Higher CTR as a result of image
  • Increased Trust / Transparency
  • Link through to author Google+ page > More articles

Testing

Use the Rich Snippet Testing Tool to see if your publisher and authorship tags are working ok.

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