What You Need to Know: Google Authorship versus Author Rank

There are no shortage of blogs to explain the increasingly importance of Google Authorship and Author Rank — but regardless, here are the basics you need to know.

Google Authorship is your personal stamp for your content, performed by linking your articles to your Google+ profile. Authorship helps protects your work from plagiarism and is entered into your Author Rank.

Author (or Agent) Rank is the compilation of that content to determine your search rank and relevancy. It is used to weed out spammers from search results and improve user search experience.

It is important to note that even if Google+ is not your primary social network, Google Authorship and Rank are of paramount importance to higher web traffic and here’s why.

1. Higher Search Rank

Simply put, Google favors those it can trust and establishing a profile on Google+ with basic matching information is an easy step to ensure your content is given its due place in search results.

2. Stand Out in Search Results

Not only are you higher ranked, but your articles will also be tagged with a thumbnail of your profile picture next to your content along with an icon indicating Google knows you’re a real person.

3. More Page Views

According to copyblogger, another authorship benefit is if a user spends at least two minutes on your page, Google’s algorithm will recognize your site as having value to that user and when they back out, they will be treated to a drop-down of other pages from your domain.

In short, if you've got quality content and you're sharing it via social, you should be claiming it via a Google+ account — your content deserves it.