Google Trust Signals: Google+ Authorship and Shifting Publisher Power

GOOGLE TRUST SIGNALS GOOGLE+, AUTHORSHIP, AND SHIFTING PUBLISHER POWER

@iACQUIRE iACQUIRE.COM

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@tomrusling

https://plus.google.com/+TomRusling

General Manager, iAcquire

TOM RUSLING

mailto:[email protected]



https://twitter.com/TomRusling

https://twitter.com/TomRusling




About iAcquire

FOUNDED 2009 Hurray! We’re turning four!

LOCATED IN AZ & NYC Coming to San Diego in 2014

1 EMPLOYEE / CLIENT 95 content marketing specialists

@tomrusling iacquire.com


Overview

• Context on Google+

• Authorship: Authority at the page level

• Authorship: Authority at the domain level

• Power shifting back to creators


The early days of Google+

Question One

When Google + launched in 2011 who here felt it was a

lame attempt for Google to compete with Facebook?


The early days of Google+

Question Two

Who here today still feels that Google+ is more or

less a failure for Google?

DOCUMENT AUTHORITY:

THE OLD WAY

= Publisher Authority* +

Agent Authority

* Publisher Authority historically has been based strongly on links to

the page + links to the domain

iacquire.com @tomrusling

Document Ranking Authority

Publisher Authority

It Has Been all about the WHERE and not at all about the WHO

Google filed in 2005 with a

filing for continuation in 2011

GOOGLE AGENTRANK

* Technical computer scientist esotericism + patent lawyer drone talk = Fun reading!!

For some information sources, all of the content is

under the control of a single agent. In such cases, the

reputation of the agent can be directly correlated with

the content of the information source. In other cases,

however, control may be delegated among several

agents, each controlling a partition of the information

source. To the extent that these partitions can be

identified, agent reputation can be calculated at the

partition level.

“

”


http://www.google.com/patents/US20070033168

QUOTE TIME


Within search results, information tied to

verified online profiles will be ranked higher

than content without such verification,

which will result in most users naturally

clicking on the top (verified) results. The

true cost of remaining anonymous, then,

might be irrelevance.

“

” The New Digital Age by Eric

Schmidt, Chairman of Google

(April 2013)


What is google+ ?

Google+ is a social networking

and identity service that is

owned and operated

by Google

- Eric Schmidt at the Media Guardian Edinburgh

International TV Festival (August 2011)

So the solution of course that we’ve

come up with is called Google+,

which is in essentially early beta, and

it looks like it’s doing very well so far.

It essentially provides an identity

service…

“

”


The new document authority

Publisher Authority

<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/103327559741952477457/"/>

Agent Authority Document Authority

@iacquire iacquire.com

In Late 2013 Matt Cutts Told Us to Expect To See Agent Rank This

Year and Also A Reduction of Authors in SERPs.


Authorship In Flux

Via Moz Cast data


True to his word, Authors in the serps Were reduced

but does this mean authorship is less important?

Domain Authority Definition: The overall level of trust a domain has in the eyes of a search engine and

it traditionally driven by factors including domain age, popularity (links), size,

freshness of content.

• It’s important because search engines prefer to highly rank content on sites that

are considered trustworthy and authoritative.

• It traditionally has been tied to volume, type, and quality of links from documents

on other trusted domains.


Domain Authority: SEO MOZ 2013 SURVEY


Domain level authority link metrics

Page-level Link Metrics

Page-Level Keyword & Content-based

Page-level, Keyword-Agnostic Features

Domain Level Brand Metrics

User Usage & Traffic/Query Data

Page-level Social Metrics

Domain Level Keyword Usage

Domain Level Keyword-Agnostic Features


Domain Authority MOZ 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors Survey

*Listed as less of a factor than page load speed!

FACTOR Importance Rating

Page Level Keyword-Agnostic Features Mid Level Factor*

Overall Algorithm Not Mentioned

Domain Level Brand Metrics Not Mentioned

Domain Level Keyword-Agnostic Features Not Mentioned

iacquire.com

Domain Authority

Question:

Could a collection of diverse highly trusted authorship

contributions act as a key trust indicator of a domain, rather

than just a page-level trust signal?

iacquire.com

Domain Authority

The Future of Building Domain Authority? Feature a collection of authenticated posts from a collection of

highly trusted author ‘agents’ who create engaging content

which garners social interaction, comments, and links.


Authenticated Digital Signatures Are Superior To Links. Google is moving

from “Strings” to “Things”.

Print Journalism


Print Journalism: An Economy In Shambles


Print Journalism: An Economy In Shambles


Trust

Distribution

TWO TRADITIONAL KEY FEATURES OF

NEWSPAPERS


POWER IS COMING BACK

TO THE HANDS OF THE

CREATORS



But What Does that mean?

Internet Graphs


Publisher Graph Social Graph Author Graph

(early 2000’s version)

+ + ?


VoiceRank™

iAcquire’s agent graph and scoring system created to evaluate the authority and trust of

established authors on the web.

• Frequency posts by the writer ‘agent’

• Authenticated article metrics

• Publisher authority metrics

• Links and citations to authenticated articles

• Social interaction and comments

Engagement Factors & Signals

@TomRusling iacquire.com

VOICERANK VOICEGRAPH:

To Date: • Top 70,000 Digital Publications

(blogs, magazines, news sites)

• Analyzed last 30 days of posts for use of Google+ Authorship

• Discovered over 25,000 unique Google+ authenticated author

profiles

EARLY FINDINGS

Top # of Sites G+ Usage

(at least one instance

in last 30 days)

70,000 11,459 16.4%

2500 620 24.8%

500 189 37.8%


Top 70,000 Sites Top 2,500 Sites Top 500 Sites

16.4% G+ Usage

24.8%

G+ Usage 37.8% G+ Usage

11,459 sites 620

sites 189 sites

VOICERANK EARLY FINDINGS


A New Writing Economy

• Marketers will place great value on the “who” and not

just the “where”

• Writers become part of the value chain

• A newly defined economy and career path for

established writers

“Those who tell the stories rule the world”

RECREATING THE WRITING ECONOMY

Those who tell the

stories rule the world

-

Plato


- Plato

A platform to connect

publishers with trusted,

high authority writers

Publishers of all kinds will

open up their purse strings

to attract high authority

writers

Authors with higher

VoiceRank™ will be

significantly rewarded

SO WHAT?

Change the way you

approach content

development for your

business website

Affect how you develop

your personal brand and

thought leadership in

your category

2 1

Photo Courtesy of Mike Arnesen

Look for authorship to

be a key trust signal for

your entire domain in

the future

3

THANK YOU!

@iACQUIRE iACQUIRE.COM

iacquire.com

Resources • Moz – “How to Prepare for AuthorRank and Get the Jump on Google”

• Search Engine Land – “What Social Signals Do Google & Bing Count?”

• Google Patent App

• SEO By the Sea – “Agent Rank or Google Plus as an Identity Service or Digital Signature”

• Core PHP – “Complete Guide to Google Authorship for SEO”

• Wikipedia – “Graph Theory”

• Wikipedia – “Open Graph”

http://moz.com/blog/how-to-prepare-for-authorrank-and-get-the-jump-on-google





http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389




http://www.google.com/patents/US20070033168

http://www.seobythesea.com/2011/11/agent-rank-or-google-plus-as-an-identity-service-or-digital-signature/




https://www.corephp.com/blog/complete-guide-google-authorship-for-seo/




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_graph




Marketing

Google Trust Signals: Google+ Authorship and Shifting Publisher Power