There were a number of questions after I reported that a new Google+ Local claim of a business in Plus (not the Dasbboard) generated instructions to add the rel=publisher rich snippet to your website. Many asked whether rel=publisher should replace the rel=author snippet. The answer is that you should do both.
Daniel Berman explained it best in the comments:
Its not a matter of either or, its a matter of both and. You want to setup the rel=”publisher” to provide a context of identifying your business website to Google and especially giving you the chance to give them the categories that your business best fits, and then tying all of that back to your NAP information that Google has on file.
You want to setup your rel=”author” markup to recognize your contribution to the content as published by the business, but recognizing that your role as a human being is larger than just your position at that business. Maybe you also have a blog, and a hobby website. If you setup the rel=”authorship” formatting on all of those sites then your online identify or persona becomes clearer to Google as whole.
That said both are needed, just like getting a yellow page listing for your business and business cards for yourself are helpful so that people can find the business but also personally connect with you as a person.
Here is a good slide show by Ann Smarty detailing the differences.
AFAIK you only need to confirm publisher at a domain level. i.e on the root/home page.
While authorship is on a per page basis.
I vaguely remember the validation tool once complained if you had both on a page. I think it has now goten over that.
Comment by Tiggerito (14 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 10:15 am
Thanks for clarifying the ‘author’ vs. ‘publisher’ debate. The slideshow sums it up nicely!
Comment by Chad Kimball (26 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 10:15 am
I’m amazed more folks are’t doing this… you will almost certainly get a bump in rankings via the correct implementation of the author tag.
Comment by Andy Kuiper (232 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 12:22 pm
Wow, it was a cool surprize: scrawling the page and bumm seeing my slideshow
Comment by Ann Smarty (3 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 3:51 pm
@Ann
Thanks for stopping by! Sorry I didn’t have time to link to you directly when I posted last night, but I have rectified that now.
Great slideshow!
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 3:56 pm
@Andy, at this time Google are saying author markup has no influence in ranking. But it is definitely in the pipeline.
What it does do is make you stand out with a photo and link to your profile. So it may increase your CTR.
Comment by Tiggerito (14 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 7:11 pm
@Tiggerito
it improves your CTR (in most cases) and it gives a bump in ranking… whether they “say so” or not.
Comment by Andy Kuiper (232 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 7:36 pm
Here is what Eric Schmidt recently said in his book on the topic: “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.”
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 7:39 pm
Thanks Mike and Ann, fantastic slide summary. Very useful. Fair to say that, like Authorship, Publisher markup transcends local.
Comment by John O'Connor (1 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 10:05 pm
@John
What else is there? My motto: All Local, All The Time.
I beg your pardon. Its fair to say that local transcends Authorship & Publisher.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — February 4, 2013 @ 10:09 pm
Thanks for the clarification, the slideshow summarises perfectly. I agree with @Tiggerito that I thought it was only the homepage that needs the rel=author snippet. Is there any final answer on this?
Comment by Michael (24 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 2:24 am
oops, too early in the morning, no coffee!
@11 should = rel=publisher
Comment by Michael (24 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 2:26 am
So just to make sure I understand this correctl, the rel=”publisher” can be used for any business? Or is it only for businesses such as a newspaper that churns out content? Can this be used for a car dealership or a law office?
Comment by Ellen (4 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 10:07 am
@Mike
Thank you for the quote, I am honored.
Comment by Daniel Berman (5 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 1:43 pm
RE: “All Local, All The Time…”
Yup….like that I do! But a quick google on that phrase shows that yup, this blog post comes up but NO smiling Michael….
C’mon Mike….AR is cool!
Jim
Comment by Jim Rudnick (164 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 3:29 pm
Daniel as I said in the other post, your comment was DEF worth quoting!
I also just quoted you in the following post: Critical 4 Local – Author Rank, Publisher & Author Markup – What you NEED to Know
In that post I also link to both Mike’s posts here, PLUS expand on the importance of both, leading up to the new and upcoming ‘author rank’ and an extremely important quote from Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google. Snippet below.
“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification…”
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 3:31 pm
AND…what Linda said that Eric said….spot-on girl!!!
Comment by Jim Rudnick (164 comments) — February 5, 2013 @ 3:35 pm
I like Eric’s book quote …”The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance” so unless your http://bit.ly/RichSnippet is connected to your rel=author and rel=publisher your dog don’t hunt!
Comment by Neil Ferree (6 comments) — February 6, 2013 @ 3:16 pm
Ann’s presentation really cleared branded authorship tags up for me. I did wonder how authorship would be used on brands as it could easily be spammed with logos etc.. which I’ve seen happen. However I have seen a massive reduction recently in G+ profile pics on commercial and branded keywords indicating they are shifting towards businesses using rel=publisher instead of them getting away with rel=author.
Comment by Malcolm Gibb (2 comments) — February 7, 2013 @ 5:41 am
So what is the best way to set up both and where should rel=author and rel=publisher appear in your website source code?
I use wordpress genesis site and have the Yoast seo plugin
**In the user section on WP there is the section to enter google Authorship link
**In the Yoast dashboard there is a place to enter google publisher link.
So when I check my source code…….I see rel=publisher on the home page, however all my other WP Pages and Posts have rel=author.
Does that sound correct?
Comment by Nathan Smith (1 comments) — February 8, 2013 @ 9:33 am
@ellen
It can be used for any business that generates content.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — February 10, 2013 @ 3:18 pm
Google seems to have changed how to edit the “Contributor to” Links for “rel=author”
Go to Google+;
Click on “Profile” in Left Navigator
Click on “About” under your header image
Scroll to “Links” in Right column
Click Edit at bottom of Links cell
Add Custom Link in “Contributor to” (or edit) and save
(This worked 05/06/13)
Comment by Graham stalley (1 comments) — May 6, 2013 @ 12:45 pm