IMPLEMENTED: New Profile Fails Google Authorship

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   Glenn Stokposted 12 years ago

   I was studying the Authorship Markup on the new profile format that has been released for staff only at this time.
   
   I noticed that the HTML link to other profiles is coded as  rel="me nofollow". 
   
   This defeats the purpose of rel="me" for Google authorship markup since Google will not follow it. We need to let Google follow all our links to all our other profiles.
   
   To prove this, I tested a few of staff's profiles with Google's Rich Snippets Test Tool. Here are two of them...
   
   Simone Smith's profile fails.  Google reports...
   
   "This page does not contain authorship or rich snippet markup."
   
   Paul Edmondson's profile passed the test only because he manually overrode the authorship markup with the rel=author tag attached to his Google+  URL. But the plan with this new profile is that Hubbers should no longer need to understand how to do this, as per my discussion with Jason Menayan in the forum a while back.
   
   I hope this is corrected before the site-wide rollout of the new profile.

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      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Well spotted Glenn. Good job someone is 'on the ball' (to coin an English expression).

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      Shadesbreathposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Holy crap. I have no idea what you just said, but that was so impressive, if you want to have my babies, I will let you.

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         Marcy Goodfleischposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         LOL!

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            Horatio Plotposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Ha! I'm with Shades. I have no idea what Google authorship is, but it sounds important.
            Until it's fixed I'm sticking where I am!
            Horatio
            x
            P.S. As for the baby thing, it makes my list Bob Dylan, David Bowie and Glen!

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               Marcy Goodfleischposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I'm not willing to have anymore babies, but I might rent out a few of the ones I already have if I can get clarification on this issue!  They come with their own razors and they can both drive cars.

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                  Shanna11posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Ooh, are they single?

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      brakel2posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Glenn - You are so good at checking these bugs. We sure do appreciate having you on the site. Do you know anything about page load on the new profile?

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         Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Brakel2,
         
         I noticed the new profile takes a little longer to load. I am sure that is because it has much more graphics. I never researched it to see what actual load times are. Not something to be concerned about since most people today have a broadband Internet.

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   Alternative Primeposted 12 years ago

   There are so many issues with the experimental "Profile Page" both technical and fundamental, and this is just one more critical reason why "Assumption of Risk" should be "Voluntary" not "Mandatory" -

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   MickiSposted 12 years ago

   Glenn, this is a bug that we are working to fix before we release the User Profile to a wider audience. Thanks for the post.

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      Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the follow-up Micki.  I'm glad you are aware of it because I was wondering why someone moved my post from the "bug report" forum to the "suggest a feature" forum.

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         jacharlessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Good catch Glenn! It could be a good idea to add the <meta author=Username as an assist. Anyway, just a thought. ~James.

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            Cameron Connerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Agreed, that was a really great catch. Not sure I would have caught that one until it was too late.

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      Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Micki,
      
      Now that the new profile is available, I just checked before enabling it for myself.  I see that the bug is still there that disables our Google Authorship.  I don't want to lose it since I have it enabled since a year ago. So I'll have to wait until this is fixed before I switch to the new profile.
      
      Google says that rel="me" is the proper coding.  Please note, as I reported in the bug forum a month ago, that "nofollow" should not be used for Google Authorship to work.

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   soni2006posted 12 years ago

   The "loss of google ownership" issue as mentioned by Glenn Stock should be taken into consideration on an urgent basis.

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      Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Soni,
      
      Thanks for your input. Now it's Friday evening and I don't expect HP to fix this over the weekend. I'll have to wait until next week before I switch to the new HP profile. I am surprised they never at least replied to my bug reports.
      
      HP programmers must have thought they did the right thing by coding it with "Google+" in the anchor. But Google never said that works with "nofollow."   It's interesting that it works with Google+ but not with Google profiles that are not "Plus". It's obvious that they never tested it with a regular Google Profile. I tested it and it fails.
      
      I hope Micki replies soon since she assured me (in this thread) that they would fix this before releasing the new HP profile. But too late for that! Now we probably have to wait till after the weekend.

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         soni2006posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         but Glenn if I have updated my google plus profile in the new HP profile page, do I need to add any tags (I mean rel = author, etc. ) in that or it will be updated on its own. For example, I need to update this link https://plus.google.com/112967512660361513380
         
         or this link https://plus.google.com/112967512660361 … rel=author
         
         also please evaluate my rich snippet information via this link: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ … 2Fsoni2006

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            Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Soni,
            
            Per my other thread I posted that it's fixed except that they left the bug in staff profiles. Strange.  Also, it only accepts Google Plus, not the regular Google profile URL.  They need to still fix that, but google does a 301 redirect anyway, so I was able to complete my new profile.
            
            You can remove "?rel=author" from your URL since that is no longer needed.  HP automatically uses the  " rel=me" parameter which is better anyway, and it's what we were waiting for since last year when Google first started this. I checked your rich snippets. All is good.  I guess you saw that your authorship is verified. You should start seeing your smiling image in Google search results soon.

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               soni2006posted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Yes I just saw that Glenn. Thank you so much for all the guidance. Good luck buddy.

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   mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years ago

   So Glenn, would I be correct in removing the '?rel=author' and replacing it with '?rel=me' at the end of the Google+ link I included on my HP profile page? I have done this, and the new link does still take me to my Google + profile, but I wasn't sure from what you were saying if I needed to actually put anything at the end of the URL now. To illustrate what I have done, my url now reads as :
   
   https://plus.google.com/106765678163064054214?rel=me
   
   
   Thanks for your help on this

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      Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Misty,
      
      I see you still are using the old HP profile, so you still need to use the alternate method Google made for websites that don't allow HTML programming by users, as you originally did when you followed the directions in my Hub many months ago. Don't change  it to rel=me since that is wrong to use as a tag attached to the URL.  The alternative method requires rel=author to be attached as a tag.
      
      The better method is rel=me as a separate parameter, not as an attached tag. Since this required HTML, HubPages finally did this for us in the new profile. So when you switch to the new profile you only need to enter your Google URL in the Google field without any additional tags.  The rest is taken care of for you. That's one of the additional advantages of the new HP profile. I'm not going to get into explaining the difference between tags and parameters again here since it's all in my Hub. But I see you are confusing the two. At this point why don't you just switch to the new HP profile and make things easier on yourself. Once you switch, you won't need to get involved with programming to keep your Google authorship status.

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         mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Glenn, for now I have changed back the end of the link to ' ?rel=author ' as I am not keen on the new 'busy' look of the new profile, plus I am up to my neck preparing veggies for our local show on Wednesday and Thursday so don't have time to thoroughly look into what is involved in changing to the new profile look. Right now I haven't even encountered an option anywhere to change over, so not sure where I find this option. I really appreciate you explaining things to me though

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            brakel2posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            You can go to a staff profile page. At the top of the page is an entry about updating your profile. You click on that entry. My profile turned out so much better than expected. Pick a good background, and if your hubs have vivid photos, it is beautiful. Good luck Misty.

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               mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks for this, very useful to know

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            Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Misty,
            
            I was just about to give you an answer but brakel2 already replied to you with the correct information. I don't blame you for waiting until you have more time. 
            
            I put a lot of thought  into it myself when I switched over. I even rewrote a new bio to use with the new profile, taking into consideration it's length so that it fits nicely on the page. I don't like to have a "more" link. So I kept the bio within limits to avoid that. And then I even had to read resize one of the images in one of my hubs so it worked well with the featured hubs list. 
            
            I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you, it could end up taking some time to set it up well.
            
            Have fun preparing the veggies. You're making me hungry.

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               mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

               lol,  if you were closer I would give you a bag of mixed veggies as a thank you Glenn

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                  Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  That sounds good. I'll leave in the morning and maybe your hubby, Richard, can pick me up at the Guernsey airport. Your gracious comments a thank you enough.

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                     mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     lol, no worries, but Richard doesn't drive so a piggy back is the best he can offer. I however do drive, and would willingly pick you up and present you with a stack of veg

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                        Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Sounds good to me. lol. 

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   Greekgeekposted 12 years ago

   Just noticed this. Glad I checked sourcecode and Google's snippet checker before switching to the new profile; after all the work I did to get Google authorship on my hubs to show up, I certainly don't want to lose it!
   
   Definitely make sure this is fixed before the new profiles are mandatory, please.
   
   I paid a professional photographer good money to make me look halfway decent, and it's very useful for driving clicks to my links in Google results.

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      Glenn Stokposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Ellen,  HP fixed one thing but not the other since I last checked. They removed the “nofollow” to Google so those of us who claimed our authorship and have our image showing on Google listings will not lose that.
      
      The other thing is that HP only allows a Google Plus URL and if you enter your “profile.google.com” URL on the new HP profile, you will get an error message. They only accept “plus.google.com”
      
      I don’t know if HP wants to force us to sign up for Google+ since none of the staff ever replied to any of my posts in this thread and in the other thread. Except for Micki, who said HP would  fix this before they release the new User Profile.
      
      A solution for you and others who have a regular Google profile and who don’t want to use Google+ … you can enter the URL with “plus” instead of “profile” at the beginning of it. Google does a 301 redirect from one to the other. I know it works. I did it that way and my HP profile and Hubs all pass the Rich Snippets test.

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