Many businesses create and share content, whether it's through writing a company blog or tweets and status updates on Twitter and Facebook, respectively. Google is reasserting the importance of creating high-value content by highlighting credible writers.
The new authorship markup system will cull content created by individuals who have linked their Google accounts with their blogs and social networks. This seems to be yet another push for users to create Google profiles, closely following the company's launch of “Me on the Web” as well as the release of its social network, Google+.
When consumers search for a topic, related content could appear in the search engine results page alongside the writer's Google profile a photograph. This helps the author generate more exposure and expertise for him or herself and the company he or she represents, and it is also a sign of the increasingly important role of quality content in search performance.
“Authorship is a great way to identify and highlight high-quality content. Plus, the web is centered around people. People discovering content on the web often want to learn more about its author, see other content by that author, and even interact with the author,” explains Sagar Kamdar, product manager of search, on Google's blog.
Quality has become a central focus for Google, especially after the search giant launched its Panda update, which penalizes websites that produce spam content. As Brafton recently reported, Google advises search marketers to create content that is valuable to readers if they want to maximize their company's rankings on the search results pages.
