{"id":830,"date":"2014-03-10T16:26:31","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T20:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.florist20.com\/blog\/?p=830"},"modified":"2014-03-11T15:41:10","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T19:41:10","slug":"google-authorship-essential-high-search-engine-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.florist20.com\/blog\/seo\/google-authorship-essential-high-search-engine-rankings","title":{"rendered":"Is Google Authorship Essential for High Search Engine Rankings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, there\u2019s been a lot of debate about the impact of Google authorship on search engine rankings. Some SEOs say it helps, others say it doesn\u2019t. The truth is no one really knows that it does <\/i>work. In fact, there was a heated argument about this recently in a private IM membership forum.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

One of the members mentioned that he removed Google authorship from some of his websites and saw their rankings go from pages 5-10 to pages 1-3 within 72 hours. While there may be pockets of results with claims that Google authorship hurts rankings, there are even many more who claim it works.<\/p>\n

The question now is, do we believe it works? Or are we just assuming it helps? Why are there so many mixed results? Is there concrete data to prove that it positively impacts search rankings or not? How do we determine its effectiveness or the lack thereof?<\/p>\n

The Case Against Google Authorship<\/h2>\n

Recently, Matt Cutts announced that the Google Webspam Team will be doing everything possible to \u201cpenalize\u201d or prevent authors who publish spammy and low quality content from getting the benefits of Google authorship.<\/p>\n

Basically, that means if you produce crappy content and think you can spam the search engines because you have a Google plus account linked to your website, you\u2019re going to be disappointed.<\/p>\n

This goes without saying that if you produce high quality, shareable content, you\u2019ll get higher preference on the search engines, resulting in better rankings. Yet, there are people who are doing the latter and getting their websites overtaken by people who are spamming the search engines. What\u2019s with that?<\/p>\n

If Google says that good content wins, why are there people with low quality content rankings higher than those with great quality content? The fact is there are other factors to consider\u2026 and maybe, just maybe, \u201csomeone\u201d is trying to blow smoke up our fannies.<\/p>\n

The Case for Google Authorship<\/h2>\n

The impact of Google authorship and Google+ was first made public by one of Moz\u2019s rankings study<\/a>. The study pointed towards an incredible correlation<\/a> between Google authorship, Google plus and higher search engine rankings.<\/p>\n

Of course, other factors were considered, but their results showed something even more interesting \u2013that it seems Google+ was built more for SEO<\/a> than for just social. Therefore, for people who frequently take advantage of Google+\u2019s link authority and effectiveness, they\u2019re bound to get better search engine rankings.<\/p>\n

Summarily, the study showed that using Google+<\/p>\n