The SEO Power of Authorship – On Site and in Backlinks

This post was written with the assistance of AI.

Hey, folks! Jim Boykin here, your favorite SEO guy who loves diving into the depths of Google’s ever-changing algorithm. You know me—I’ve been around this block a few times, poking around, running experiments, and seeing what makes Google tick. And oh boy, have I got something juicy for you today. Let’s chat about the leaked Google documentation and go into one area in a bit of detail.

This time, it’s all about authorship—how Google identifies and values the authors of content, both on your pages and through backlinks. If you’re still stuck in the era where you think authors don’t matter, you’re in for a wake-up call. The way Google is handling authorship these days could make or break your site’s SEO.

So, buckle up, SEO warriors, because we’re going deep. And when I say deep, I mean we’re going into one of the core areas of the Google algorithm leak, dissecting the role of authors in search rankings, and figuring out how we can use this knowledge to boost our SEO game.

What the Leak Revealed About Authors and Google’s Algorithm

Understanding the API features for Author Data Extraction

To get a grip on how Google uses authorship data, you need to understand the different API calls mentioned in the leak. These calls help Google fetch detailed information about authors, link structures, and content relationships across the web. Knowing what these calls mean can give you a leg up in optimizing your content and backlinks. Here’s a breakdown of some of the the most important ones in my eyes.

• GET page_meta_info
  • Definition: Retrieves metadata from a webpage, including the author’s name from HTML <meta> tags. This is crucial for sites that want to ensure proper author attribution.
  • SEO Insight: Ensure all pages have accurate meta tags with author information. This helps Google quickly and efficiently recognize your authors.
• GET /user_profiles/{user_id}
  • Definition: Pulls detailed user profile data from Content Management Systems (CMS) that store author information.
  • SEO Insight: Utilize this for managing multiple authors on a site. Rich author profiles can help build trust and credibility with Google.
• GET /author_info?user_id={user_id}
  • Definition: Retrieves detailed information about an author, including bios, roles, and content contributions.
  • SEO Insight: Make sure your site’s API or CMS can output this type of rich author information to maximize author authority signals.
• GET /link_meta_info?url={page_url}
  • Definition: Analyzes the links on a page to identify authors of the linked content.
  • SEO Insight: Prioritize backlinks from trusted authors and credible sources to boost your site’s authority.
• GET external_meta_info?external_url={link_url}
  • Definition: Fetches metadata from external sites to extract authorship details from links.
  • SEO Insight: Strive for high-quality backlinks from sites with clear, authoritative authorship data.
• ScienceCitationAuthor
  • Definition: A structured data model capturing detailed author metadata, including name, role, and institutional affiliation.
  • SEO Insight: Particularly useful for sites in academic or scientific niches. Use this schema to provide comprehensive author information.
• ScienceCitationTranslatedAuthor
  • Definition: Similar to ScienceCitationAuthor but includes translated names for multilingual contexts.
  • SEO Insight: Implement this if you have authors contributing content in multiple languages to ensure proper attribution.
• NlpSciencelitCitationData
  • Definition: Contains author data connected to citations or articles, indicating its relevance for academic and scientific content.
  • SEO Insight: Helps in building a more credible and authoritative content library for research-based topics.
• NlpSciencelitAuthor
  • Definition: Focuses on basic author information such as first name and last name.
  • SEO Insight: Even simple author details like this can be valuable, especially if consistently formatted across all content.
• NlpSciencelitArticleMetadata
  • Definition: Deals with metadata for articles, including author details.
  • SEO Insight: Ensure article metadata is complete and accurate to enhance the discoverability and trustworthiness of your content.
• VideoVideoClipInfo
  • Definition: Includes author attributes related to video content, which is crucial for video SEO.
  • SEO Insight: Proper author attribution in video content helps in ranking for video search results.
• NlpSemanticParsingModelsShoppingAssistantProductMediaProduct
  • Definition: Relates to media products for purchase, including author information.
  • SEO Insight: If you’re selling media products, proper authorship details could enhance content recommendations and visibility.
• ScienceIndexSignal
  • Definition: Relates author information to scholarly articles and indexing signals.
  • SEO Insight: Important for academic SEO. Ensure authorship details are precise to benefit from indexing signals.
• NlpSaftDocument
  • Definition: Mentions authors within broader document contexts using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques.
  • SEO Insight: Understand that Google may use NLP to interpret authorship even without explicit tags, so the clarity of author content matters.
• OceanDataDocinfoWoodwingItemMetadata
  • Definition: Discusses authorship within item metadata for document management systems.
  • SEO Insight: For sites with complex document management needs, this could be vital in organizing and optimizing content.
• NlxDataSchemaDocument
  • Definition: Includes author data from a document analysis perspective.
  • SEO Insight: Make sure your content management system is set up to provide detailed author data for every piece of content.

These and other  author calls from Google cover both on page factors and backlink factors.

On-Page Factors, are all about your site. Have you properly attributed every piece of content? Are you using structured data? Are your authors real, trustworthy, and experts in their field? If not, you better start cracking.

Backlink Factors, on the other hand, are about who’s linking to you. It’s not enough to just get any backlink; you want backlinks where the content is attributed to respected authors. Google is cross-referencing this stuff, and the days of dodgy, anonymous links are long gone.

Weaving a Web of Trust with Google: The Power of Authorship and Backlinks

So, what’s the big picture here? All these API calls, metadata, and authorship signals aren’t just random bits of code—they’re the threads that weave a web of trust with Google. Let me break it down for you:

1. On-Page Authorship Signals: Every API call that pulls metadata from your page (GET page_meta_info, GET /user_profiles/{user_id}, etc.) is like a thread in a web. When you consistently provide detailed, accurate author information using structured data and meta tags, you’re telling Google, “Hey, this content is written by a real, credible person.” Google then starts to trust that content more.
2. Building Author Authority Across the Web: It’s not enough to just have a great author page on your site. Google wants to see that this author is respected across the web. Calls like GET /link_meta_info?url={page_url} and GET external_meta_info?external_url={link_url} allow Google to analyze backlinks and determine if other credible sites are also recognizing this author. If authoritative sites link back to content written by your authors, it strengthens that author’s credibility. It’s like having a network of endorsements from trusted sources.
3. Creating a Multi-Dimensional Author Profile: Using detailed models like ScienceCitationAuthor and ScienceCitationTranslatedAuthor, Google can see not just who the author is but their affiliations, roles, and even how they are represented in different languages. This multi-layered data adds depth to the web of trust, making it harder for low-quality or spammy authors to fake authority.
4. Cross-Referencing Content Types: Calls such as VideoVideoClipInfo for videos or NlpSemanticParsingModelsShoppingAssistantProductMediaProduct for product media indicate that Google is looking at authorship across various content types. This means if an author is consistently producing credible content in different formats—blogs, videos, products—they gain even more trust from Google.
5. Linking Authors to Knowledge Networks: When you connect authors to the Google Knowledge Graph, or when other sites reference these authors in well-structured and context-rich content, it’s like connecting the dots in a vast network of knowledge. Google’s SQL query patterns like SELECT * FROM calls_table WHERE call_name LIKE
'%author%'; suggest that they’re continuously filtering and analyzing data to connect these dots.
6. NLP and Contextual Understanding: With calls like NlpSaftDocument, Google uses Natural Language Processing to understand the broader context in which authors are mentioned. This helps the search engine verify that an author isn’t just a name slapped on content but is genuinely contributing valuable information to the digital ecosystem.

Crafting the Perfect Author Program in 9 Steps

You want a recipe for success? Here’s one game plan.

1. Develop Detailed Author Bios: Your authors should have rich bios that scream authority. Professional headshots, credentials, and even a little personality. Add links to your social accounts, and add links other places on the web where you have been mentioned.
2. Implement Structured Data Markup: Use Schema.org markup for every piece of content. Make Google’s life easier, and they’ll reward you.
3. Consistent Author Names: Ideally, use real people with real reputation on the web. Non-real names don’t work as well with Google because of all they track.
4. Verify Author Expertise: Keep those bios updated with new achievements and certifications. Show growth and continuous expertise.
5. Encourage Author Engagement: Get your authors involved. Comments, Q&A, social media interactions—it all helps.
6. Link Authorship with Google Knowledge Graph: If you can get your author into Google’s Knowledge Graph, do it. Major credibility boost.
7. Monitor Authorship in Backlink Profiles: Keep tabs on who’s linking to you, and if you’re getting links from other highly trusted authors this can help the value of the link.
8. Maintain a CMS with Author Management: Your CMS should make author management a breeze. Keep everything neat, clean, and accessible.
9. Encourage Authors to Build Their Own Backlink Profiles: Being published on other sites, webinars, and other forms of content where they can build their backlink profile will help you. It all counts.

Conclusion: Trust is the Ultimate Currency in SEO

All these API calls and data points show us that Google is building a complex, interconnected web of trust. The more threads you weave by providing detailed, accurate author information, getting credible backlinks, and consistently publishing high-quality content across various formats, the stronger your position in Google’s web becomes.

Here’s the kicker: if you understand this web and work on building it thoughtfully, you’re not just playing the SEO game—you’re mastering it. Remember, trust is the ultimate currency with Google. So, take this knowledge, implement it, and start weaving your own web of trust. High rankings aren’t just given; they’re earned.