Google Entities: Recognizing content creators

[EditorialGuy]

Jason Barnard wrote an article for Search Engine Land back in September, 2024 that hasn't received much attention but probably should. The title of the article is "Google recognizes content creators: A breakthrough for E-E-A-T and SEO," and the gist of the piece is that "E-E-A-T takes on real (measurable) meaning when Google identifies people it considers authoritative on a topic and can confidently link them to the content they create."

[searchengineland.com...]

It would seem to me that a lot of the dreck in today's Google Search results would go away (or be pushed down into oblivion) if Google did a better job of recognizing and rewarding topic authority for individual content creators. Danny Sullivan said recently in a Search Engine Roundtable thread that Google doesn't currently use "authorship." If not, why not?

[ashleydent4u]

I totally agree with this! If Google started better recognizing and rewarding individual content creators who are true authorities on specific topics, it would definitely improve search results. A lot of the lower-quality content out there would get pushed down, and we'd see more accurate, helpful, and authoritative information at the top. It’s interesting that Danny Sullivan mentioned Google not using "authorship" anymore, but if they did start linking content to trusted creators, it would likely boost both E-E-A-T and SEO. It could be a big step forward in making search results more reliable and user-friendly!

[RedBar]

As yet I have not read this.

My immediate thought is as a content writer for an almost 200 year old business, the content is for the business information and promotion and not for one's personal gain.

How could a "content writer" have a priority reward over a "widget professional" creator?

Is the content writer an "I", personal, whereas the widget professionals are "We". corporate?

[christianz]

Terrible idea. It would boost spam. All spam sites would have great apparent authorship. There would be people renting or selling their name to multiple sites etc.

Web is far more than just blogs and articles. Most of those other applications don't need to have any personifable author info.

Off-site EAT is terrible idea to its core and is responsible for all kinds of spam that we see nowadays - such as authority abuse spam.

[Kendo]

Such a thing would just be spoofed like everything else. In any case by the time the algorithm is twisted and perverted to enhance home projects, it will be samo samo all over again.

Take domain age that was once hailed as a criteria. Anyone with a domain name that includes their keyword and a 20+ years history as innovator for that topic means nothing when anyone can register a new domain and appear on first page of results without any page content.