Google Authorship: Attaching Your Image on Google Search

You may have notice already that when searching on Google, you may find a picture of a person on the right side. This is actually a picture of the author that have made the said page or basically owns the said web page. This is because Google supports authorship on blogs and web pages and thus would be helpful for users who are searching. This is again one of the newest feature that Google has done on their search engine.

What is the advantage of having the author's image?

Other than it provides ownership of the site and blog, it also provides branding of the author. It is as simple as your name and picture being branded for the niche you are writing and thus more and more people within your genre would recognize you. Take it as your badge of reputation over the net.

Also, being on the field of web developing, I must say that the pictures attract more readers rather than ordinary links. Having that in mind this is a good way of promoting your site and gaining traffic.

So how do I do add authorship on my page?

Here is the 3-step way to do the job.

1) First create a Google profile. Right now Google profile is connected to its new social networking service known as Google+. If you still don't have one, feel free to contact me so that I can send you an invitation.

2) Next is add the Authorship Markup Code (AMC). AMC is the key that tells Googlebots that it is you who created the said page.

<a rel=”author” href=”https://profiles.google.com/[YOUR-GOOGLE-PLUS-ID]”>About YOUR NAME&</a>

It is advisable to place this on all the pages you have done. Take note of the word "pages", it simply means that you need to attach it to your web pages and not on the article. An example is if you are a blogger, you can simply add it as a widget. You can also try this site to create a link/badge for you.

As you may have notice, the rel="author" is very important since this is the exact thing that Googlebots are looking for. So make sure that the said property is included as well as the href to your profile.

3) Now go to your Google profile (aka Google +) and edit your settings. Look for the links and add your blog/site in there and make sure that you checked the "This page is specifically about me".

After doing this, all you have to do is wait for the googlebot to pass your blog again and cache it to the search engine's database. Now if you are in a hurry, you can check temporarily the appearance of your blog/site on the search engine using Google webmasters.

Having problems?

Still doesn't see your image in there? There could be lots of reasons like goolgebot hasn't passed again to your blog. Another thing, based on my experience, the www prefix affects the outcome of this (correct me if I'm wrong). To resolve this, I added both links with www and without it on my google profile and it solved the problem.

So go now and try this nice feature of google!