How Author Rank will Affect SEO in 2013

Google’s Author Rank is set to be the next big thing in 2013. And with the SEO world still reeling from its Penguin and Panda updates, SEO experts are wondering just how exactlyAuthor Rank is going to affect content marketingand web page rankings in the months to come and how they should prepare this new challenge head on.

Author Rank has been around in various guises for at least seven years. It just hasn’t actually been rolled out by Google yet, who filed a patent for it under the name ‘Agent Rank’ back when it was first thought up. Industry experts predict AuthorRank will be rolled out in the next 6-9 months, making it essential for webmasters and online companys to start preparing for AuthorRank.

In short, Author Rank will change the way we think about publishing content online, and about how we actively seek to push up our web rankings. As with Penguin and Panda, the emphasis will remain on good content from trusted sources, however Author Rank will seek to further define just exactly what constitutes a ‘good source’. In Google’s eyes, this will mean an established author with a good online presence and social media network, as well as an already established reputation for producing good quality content. Rather than focusing on metrics from the site hosting the content, Google will judge its worth based on the individual author who wrote it. So, just as SEO enthusiasts have been pointing out for months (read: years), content is what it all comes back to in the end.

The word is that Author Rank will take into account a vast amount of factors to calculate the worthiness of a page, some of which will include:• How many Google +1 circles the author is in.
• On site engagement with content.
• The number of social shares the content receives.
• Reciprocal connections to other authors with high Author Rank.

 

All signs point to Author Rank being rolled out in the not too distant future. Because Author Rank will be comprised of a hugely social element, the roll out and heavy emphasis by Google on its Circles and +1 features point to Author Rank being not too far away at all. However with no official release date having been set, all that web owners can do is prepare the best they can. Raw links and keywords just aren’t going to cut it anymore, and web owners who have done nothing to prepare will quickly find out just how bad it can be.

Author Rank is going to effectively put paid to SEO as we know it by linking it even more tightly to SMO (social media optimisation) and making it even harder to succeed off the back of black hat SEO practices such as keyword stuffing and link farming. If your content isn’t great, your website will most likely slip further and further down the rankings. There’s only one real way to prepare for Author Rank and that’s to start producing good quality, interesting content that your audience will want to share and discuss. And if you start now, by the time Author Rank rears its head your Author worth will already be well established.  Content writers will need to develop authority signals to prove to Google they are experts in their discipline, are popular online and are ultimately producing quality content for their niche:

To find out more, contact our team of international SEO experts today.