Google author stats - all websites combined - rankings impact?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

A question I had a while back was about wether or not the content on site A could impact the rankings on site B (both being your sites) and I suggested that Google may be profiling sites at the webmaster level, gathering information about the author and using it to rank pages etc. They haven't admitted doing so but explicitly retain the right and rarely give warning so..

In Google webmaster tools, under the LABS link there is an author stats link leading to a page that displays aggregate data from any site/page you're a confirmed author of. To me this suggests that Google is indeed looking at all of a webmasters sites combined, has anyone gathered evidence that Google adjusts rankings based on author?

It wouldn't be too difficult to set up a test - if your portfolio is white hat and ranking well what happens when you purchase a political site? adult site? opinionated site not appreciated by Google?

Do you think Google should be judging all your books based on you as an author instead of individually on their own merit?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:27 am (utc) on Jan 20, 2012]
[edit reason] fixed typo [/edit]

[Content_ed]

Sgt,

I read the help, it's another Google attempt to force people to use their social networking features, Google Profiles in this case. Much like Panda, it sounds like a beauty contest, starting with the instruction that you need to add a good "head shot" to your Google Profile.

Next you have to get a code snippet from Proflies to add to any web page you want linked, and then you have to link back from Profiles to the page. Wasn't clear if the link back is required for every page or one per site.

Other than causing your Profiles page to appear in Google before your website, blog, or whatever, it's not clear whether this is useful. If they would announce "the pages you claim as author will be used as a signal to stamp on copyright infringements" I'd do it.

[tedster]

Based on just a few applications of authorship mark-up, I suspect it is helpful in outranking sites that re-publish the article,

[Content_ed]

Well, I'm gave it a shot with my blog. The implementation turned out to be easy enough, and you only have to link back from Profiles to a given domain once, rather than for every article. It also turns out there's a check box when you edit the profile that will allow you to hide your profile from search engines if you get sick of it showing up #1.

Ignoring blog posts, I doubt I've generated 300 pages of content in fifteen years, so it would only take a few hours to manually stick the tag in them all. Maybe next week.

Of course, when you use the Google verification tool, it complains that you haven't added all the possible parameters to the tag, like when the article was written, a titles, etc. That would take many days.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Based on just a few applications of authorship mark-up, I suspect it is helpful in outranking sites that re-publish the article,

Would it remain helpful in outranking sites that re-publish the article if Google found one site they disapprove of under your name? One site can destroy the rankings of them all sort of thing?

[tedster]

In theory, I guess so. However, I haven't seen that or heard of that. I certainly wouldn't just use authorship mark-up merely to gain technical advantage - first there has to be a quality author who is writing quality content.

[Content_ed]

They only "count" if you link the domain from your Google Profile page. They are very specific about this, it isn't just the name and the author tag.