Brafton has focused its attention on proving the power of Authorship and why every business must give credit to their content writers in search engine results pages. In a recent blog post, we highlighted the benefit of having author images appear next to rich snippets, using sites like Max Real Estate Exposure and Disney Baby as examples of brands that are doing it right.
However, many businesses expect Google to introduce Publishership to complement Authorship in the future. This would credit brands with all written custom content hosted on their sites, and provide companies with opportunities to replace author images with their logos. Google has officially informed the folks at Search Engine Land that the company has “no plans” for a type of “Publishership” tool to go live.
Buzz circulated this month that a new benefit of the rel=publisher option would soon be available, as brands cited examples from Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool (see example to the right). Google told SEL that this function has been live for months, and it’s no indication that Publishership will ever roll out. The search engine company is in the process of making it clearer for brands using the tool to view their rich snippets.
Brands focusing on content marketing should realize that Google wants to provide individual writers with the credit they deserve, not the overarching brands looking over their shoulders, and this form of transparent content creation adds value to the ‘net. Authorship, not Publishership, is here to stay.
