Google Authorship & Publisher

miavitadolce,

In the General Settings page for All in One SEO Pack, under Google Settings, enter your Google+ Business Page Profile url as “Google Plus Default Profile”, that is what is used for the Publisher url.

Peter,

If you do that it changes rel=”publisher” to the correct url, but also adds the same url to rel=”author”

<link rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/109864413559064435900&#8243; />
<link rel=”publisher” href=”https://plus.google.com/109864413559064435900&#8243; />

Like miavitadolce, would like the author and publisher to be different.

Thoughts?

plake777,

For authors, add their Google+ profile URLs in their individual user profiles; this will get used when there is content authored by that particular author; otherwise, the author URL will default to the URL used for the Google Plus Default Profile option.

Peter,

Already had that set in my individual profile. No matter what <ID> I put in the ‘Google Plus Default Profile:’ field, the SEO plugin creates both author and rel entries for that <ID>

<link rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/<ID>&#8221; />
<link rel=”publisher” href=”https://plus.google.com/<ID>&#8221; />

If you view source for my webpage (https://heartstonejourney.com/) you will see:
<!– All in One SEO Pack 2.0.1 by Michael Torbert of Semper Fi Web Design[368,375] –>
<link rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/105309913142828601164&#8243; />
<link rel=”publisher” href=”https://plus.google.com/105309913142828601164&#8243; />
etc.

I can just clear and place the entries I need in the header, but its nice using plugin.

plake777,

Yes, the Google+ profile URL from a user profile only gets used when there is a post by a particular author with a Google+ profile set as the content of the page. If you’re using a static front page, and the author of that page has a Google+ profile set, then it will use that profile URL for the author meta field.

Peter,

Thanks for the clarity on using a static page (which I am). Individual profile has the Google+ profile URL and the ‘Google Plus Default Profile’ has the Google+ Business Page Profile url. Checked it all out with the Structured Data Testing Tool and all is good. The static page piece was throwing me off. Appreciate the helps, thank you!

Thank you Peter!

Hi Peter,

I’m still confused, if the Google+ Page id is popped into pages where an author isn’t assigned this can confuse Google authorship and may cause the authorship snippet to not return. Google authorship is for individuals not business/brand.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to have the Google+ Page appearing as author no matter what the circumstance is. Google Publisher tag should only be appearing on the home page. Is there anyway to correct this?

Am I understanding this incorrectly? This is my dilemma, if I use the plugin to assign authorship and publisher because my home page is a listing of posts the Google+ Page id is attached as the author, this shouldn’t be the case. The Google+ Page id should never populate in the authorship tag.

I’ve removed the ids for now but please see snippet below for view source of the home page, my Google+ Page id is populating in both fields.

<!– All in One SEO Pack 2.0.3.1 by Michael Torbert of Semper Fi Web Design[983,1015] –>
<link rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/116455008338712344229&#8243; />
<link rel=”publisher” href=”https://plus.google.com/116455008338712344229&#8243; />

The author tag in this instance shouldn’t populate because it’s a listing of posts and according to Google authorship the tag should not be referenced on this page.

Grace

miavitadolce,

The publisher tag should only appear on the front page, so if that’s showing up elsewhere, then that’s definitely a bug. The author tag should show up on singular pages or posts and the Google+ id should correspond to the id entered into the Google+ Profile field for the author of that page or post. If you do not wish to do that on your site, then check the “Disable Google Plus Profile” option. Elsewhere, the author will default to the Google+ id of the publisher.

Hi Peter,

When you say the author will default to the Google id of the publisher than aren’t you saying that the Google+ Page will become the author on pages other than the home page, if so it shouldn’t be. As you can see the Google+ Page is the author of my home page, the page should never be the author of any content because it’s a business and Google authorship is for individuals. For my home page the only tag that should appear because it’s a listing of articles is the publisher tag.

I hope I’m explaining myself.

Grace

Grace,

I think that was how they explained rel=author to people, but currently I haven’t seen any actual restrictions on where it can be used; you can verify that with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. I’ll see about adding some more options for customizing these tags under the hood for people who want more control over where and how they appear.

Hi Peter

I help in the Webmaster Forums and I know that Google has made it very clear about authorship and that it is for individuals and publisher is for brands. They also state that the publisher tag should appear on home page – https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1708844?hl=en.

Grace

Grace,

Does the publisher tag not appear on the home page for you currently? As I said previously, the publisher tag should only appear on the front page, so if that’s showing up elsewhere, then that’s definitely a bug.

Sorry Peter I didn’t mean to confuse things, no it’s not. Hopefully there will be a way to prevent the automatic population of the page id in the authorship tag.

Grace

Grace,

This should be possible in the next release; once it’s out, I should be able to update this thread with a bit of code to further customize things.