How to claim authorship with Google - sorry, I gave you a bum steer

1. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 13 years ago

   I have to issue a grovelling apology here, I stuffed up mightily.  I posted an explanation of how to claim authorship with Google, and made one small but extremely important mistake. 
   
   For those who followed the original advice, my sincere apologies.  You need to edit your profile and change "rel=author" to "rel=me". 
   
   For everyone else, the correct explanation is below:
   
   To get your authorship recognized by Google, you need to claim your sub-domain on your Google or Google Plus profile (not Webmaster Tools).  To do that, you need a special link FROM your HubPages profile TO your Google profile. 
   
   Until recently, the only way to do that was by coding - and since we don't have access to the coding on our HubPages profile page, we had to wait for HubPages to work out a solution, which isn't straightforward.  But now, Google has issued instructions so we can do it ourselves.  Here are the instructions:
   
   http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/how-to- … rel-author
   
   Basically, what you do is type your name somewhere in your profile with a "+" either before or after.  Make that a hyperlink to your Google profile with "?rel=me" tacked on at the end.  This is what I pasted in:
   
   https: //plus.google.com/112378327984545867810?rel=me
   
   Be careful, because if you just copy and paste your Google profile link, it will have "about" on the end of it. Some writers advise you to remove the "about", so it's best to be on the safe side!
   
   Why do you need to do this?  Google is now making a feature of authors on search results.  The theory is that if you're a recognized author, your Hubs will rank higher.

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      mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I noticed you left in the word 'about' in the link Marisa. Was that correct or did you mean to delete that part?

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2. 81

   WriteAngledposted 13 years ago

   Now I'm totally confused!
   
   I changed the "author" to "me" on my profile here. However, there seems no way to check this, because, according to the article you cite, Rich Snippets doesn't always work and may give an error message, which is what happens when I test.
   
   Also, I have absolutely no clue how this is supposed to work with Blogger, because there is no way to put links into your profile description there.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Deleted
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         mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         and do we leave in the forward slash after our string of numbers or delete it and immediately add the ?rel=me at the end? In your link above the '/' is still there, but I have not included it in my link!

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         1. 86

            Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Deleted
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               mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks Marisa, will wait and see if it works now

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3. 81

   WriteAngledposted 13 years ago

   I found the answer on how to do it for Blogger blogs here:
   http://blog.sethladd.com/2011/08/assert … r-and.html
   
   Rich Snippets continues to say there is an error when I try to test things, but my Blogger blogs and hubs show up in Google with the little photo now.
   
   What is more, lots of my stuff is now showing up on the first page of Google results, at least on Google UK, even when I put in fairly vague search terms.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Great!

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      seriousnutsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks WriteAngled! I've tried the instruction from the link you provided, and it worked! Rich Snippets showed a verified authorship on my blogger URL.

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         IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I got mine working on Blogger and verified.
         
         Has anyone managed to get their HP account verified yet?

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            Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Hey Izzy!  I've been on a self imposed ban, (vacation) for cursing out the entire internet, for the last 4 days and wondered if any of the other "plungers" have heard any news.
            
            Not too interested in doing any new "Google hoop jumping" at the moment, though.

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            1. 84

               IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Quite a few plungers have recovered and some of us haven't. I got an email back from Google to say there was no penalty on my account. Hub views seem to be all over the place for everybody. Just need to sit it out and wait.

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                  Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  No change for me.  Still 80% or more down.  No matter, I've missed my peak earnings period for this year anyway. 

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            2. 90

               wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               You might take a look at this thread:
               
               http://hubpages.com/forum/post/1765115
               
               It just may have a possible explanation for the wild traffic swings people are seeing.

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                  Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, I read that topic, Wilderness.  Nothing is for sure, it seems. 

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                     wildernessposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     If there is anything less sure than the internet I haven't found it!
                     
                     There isn't even any real indication that googles algorithm will value links the same way.  It's all guess work, but seems to fit the facts that we are aware of.

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                        Randy Godwinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Perhaps.  I had just as soon Google go belly up at this point.  Do this, do that, join here, tag this, yadda, yadda, yadda....
                        
                        Grew scroogle!

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               2. 86

                  Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  I'm not following why that would be any explanation, Wilderness?
                  
                  Before our sub-domains were created, links from other people's Hubs were internal.
                  
                  The minute our sub-domains were created, all those links became external links.  Nothing has changed since then.
                  
                  The webmaster post was all about how Google has since changed the way it classifies links if you own the root domain but we don't own the root domain.

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         2. 86

            Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            No,curses.
            
            I've just discovered that if you put the "me" or "author" in quotes, as someone told me to do, it disappears when you save your profile.
            
            Besides, I'm still not convinced whether we're supposed to be using "rel=me" or "rel=author".   When I test the link in the Rich Snippets Tool, it says:
            
            author
            linked author profile = http: //marisawright.hubpages.com/
            Error: Author profile page does not have a rel=me link to a Google Profile
            
            If I'm supposed to use a rel=author link on my HubPages profile, why is the Tool asking for rel=me?
            
            And before you ask, yes I do have the rel=me link activated on my Google profile (by ticking the box).
            
            We may just have to wait for the new profile where it'll be done for us. 
            
            When the rel=author thing was first announced, I recall they said the profile link wouldn't be done for some time, which is why I thought it was worth us making an effort to solve it ourselves in the meantime. Sounds like it may not be so far away after all.

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4. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 13 years ago

   ....did anyone notice the other deliberate mistake (ha ha) in my OP?
   
   rel="author" and rel="me" should have quotation marks.
   
   So I'm hoping people copied the instructions from the link I gave, and didn't just modify my link!
   
   Here it is again and I hope I've got it right this time:
   
   https: //plus.google.com/112378327984545867810?rel="me"
   
   The instructions I originally followed didn't include the quotation marks, so I don't know whether it's important - but just in case!
   
   And it would be SO good if someone with proper expertise could pop in and confirm that I've got this right.  So far we've done what Hubbers usually do - pool our wits to come up with a solution - but it would be nice to know we're on the right track.

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      joyfuldesignsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks so much for this info.  It wasn't as bad as a process as it might seem.

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5. 91

   wordscribe43posted 13 years ago

   Bless you, Marisa.  That helps soooo much.  I've been so confused about this process.  I think I did this right, we'll see.  Now to figure out how to do this on my affiliate websites.  Tricky since they're not Blogger or Wordpress. 
   
   Thanks for sharing this information.

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6. 81

   WriteAngledposted 13 years ago

   Marisa, I put in the me without the " ". I notice if you use " " in the link on your profile here, the whole "me" is stripped out. On my link, without the " ", the me bit is retained, I do not see the me bit on your link.
   
   Another thing I found is that if I am not logged in to Google, I do not see my picture in the search results. Searching for your hubs, I also did not see yours, and not when logged in either.
   
   So now I no longer know whether I have done it right or not.
   
   I too really wish someone from HP would explain things! We've been beating our brains over this for too long.

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7. 61

   Jason Menayanposted 13 years ago

   Based on what I've read in the Google documentation (original instructions, and new/modified instructions), you've got a few things wrong.
   
   We can not use the "original" method yet here on HubPages because we can't add the rel="me" attribute to your <a href> tag that points to your other online sites (like your blogs, Twitter accounts, etc.) We do not currently allow HTML editing of your bio. We are working on making some big changes to the Profile page (your subdomain) that will enable this, but it'll be a while before that's rolled out. That method doesn't require working through your Google profile.
   
   The "new/modified" version can be done now, if you choose to link your HubPages profile to your Google profile, and, if you choose, to other places where you publish online.
   
   We'll be preparing this into a Learning Center entry soon, but if you'd like to start now, here is the procedure:
   
   1. Edit your bio, adding a line to this effect:
   
   Read my Google+ profile to see where else I publish online and what I like.
   
   (You can replace Google+ with something else, but make sure it begins or ends with a +)
   
   2. In another browser window/tab, make sure you're logged into your Google account (by logging into Gmail, for example) and then going to: http://profiles.google.com/
   This will load your Google profile and also change the link in your browser bar to something along the lines of:
   http://plus.google.com/9579554092388402
   
   3. Copy that new link, and go back to editing your bio. Highlight Google+ and click the chain link icon to make it into a link.
   
   4. Enter that Google profile link, and add (no space!) ?rel=author to the end of that.
   So, for example:
   http://plus.google.com/9579554092388402
   would become
   http://plus.google.com/9579554092388402?rel=author <-- make this your link for Google+ in your bio.
   
   So, in this made up example, that line in your bio will look like:
   Read my Google+ profile to see where else I publish online and what I like.
   
   5. Go back to your Google profile. Click the About subtab.
   
   6. Click the blue Edit profile button.
   
   7. Click the box that says Links to the right.
   
   8. Click the Add custom link link, and in the two fields enter:
   first field: Your username on HubPages
   second field: your full subdomain link (like: http://marisawright.hubpages.com)
   
   9. Check the box that says This page is specifically about me
   
   10. Decide who you want this to be visible to in the gray box above the blue save button (Google will see it no matter what you choose), and then click the Save button.
   
   11. Click the Done editing button at the top in the red bar.
   
   You can repeat these same steps for other sites where you publish, like your blog, but the essential thing is you have to do both things: link to your Google profile in a certain way, and then add a link to that same page in your Google profile.
   
   That should do it! Yes, it's complicated, but it will work until we get the new Profile pages up, which will be relatively painless.

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      SunSevenposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Excellent 'how to' Jason. Thanks a lot.
      Best Regards

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Jason!   I'm aware HubPages is working on making this painless for us, but you also mentioned it was a big project and wouldn't be immediate - so when I saw this workaround, I thought it was worth sharing.
      
      
      
      Now,that's where I'm confused.  In my first thread, I said exactly the same thing - that you should use the rel="author" tag.  But I was then corrected (both on the thread and via email) and told we should be using rel="me" on the profile page.  The rel="author" tag is for the individual Hubs, which as you know HubPages has kindly done for us.
      
      ??

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         Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Below is a technical discussion of how Google has implemented the rel=author/rel=me architecture. It does not have practical advice on how to implement this; please refer to the blue section above for practical steps.
         
         I think there's some confusion between the "original" and "new/modified" methods. Here's the difference:
         
         * "original"
         
         linking from Hubs to your HubPages profile/subdomain:
         <a rel="author" href="http://yoursubdomain.hubpages.com">your username</a> (this part is automatically done)
         
         linking from your HubPages profile/subdomain to a blog of yours:
         <a rel="me" href="http://whatever.wordpress.com">my WordPress blog</a>
         
         linking back from your WordPress blog to your HubPages profile/subdomain:
         <a rel="me" href="http://yoursubdomain.hubpages.com">Me on HubPages</a>
         
         Note that this setup doesn't involve linking through your Google profile.
         
         * "new/modified"
         
         linking from Hubs to your HubPages profile/subdomain:
         <a rel="author" href="http://yoursubdomain.hubpages.com">your username</a> (this part is automatically done)
         
         linking from your HubPages profile/subdomain to your Google profile:
         <a href="http://plus.google.com/9073257252305320423042?rel=author">Google+</a>
         
         linking from your Google profile back to your HubPages profile/subdomain:
         (done through the Links box on the About subtab)

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      lisabeamanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the how-to! I never would have seen that "this is specifically about me" box to check on Google!

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      BaliMermaidposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you Jason. It worked perfectly. The link to my sub-domain with the Hubpages logo was already there but I changed that to wording of my liking.

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      mymagicviewposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the help!!! I got exactly what I needed.

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8. 91

   wordscribe43posted 13 years ago

   Thanks, Jason.  Although that means I have to re-do it. 
   
   Edit:  Done!  Thanks so much for the straightforward steps, Jason.

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      Bubblegum Senpaiposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Jason! Everything on this forum was greek to me until you came along. Domo Arigato (Thank you very much!)

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9. 60

   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years ago

   So if I wait for the new profile page then it will be easier?
   
   I'll wait I think.  I already have so much traffic I don't know what to do with it.
   
   Not really.

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10. 90

    mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years ago

    Thanks Jason.
    
    Do you have any idea how long it takes for the profile pictures to start appearing beside our articles on search results once we have done this, as I have done this but so far no pictures appearing by my articles?
    
    Thanks

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       Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I have no idea. It's possible that it doesn't show up when you're logged in, but rather for other people. Or there could just be a delay while Google spiders your HubPages profile and then makes the necessary linkage on their end.

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          lisabeamanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          My photo shows up on search results next to hubs I have "shared". Is that what we are looking for... or should I be looking for something else?

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             Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I think that happens, but maybe other people should also see a picture of you next to your Hubs in search results, too. Not sure if that's the case only if you're a "friend" (like on Google+) or not.
             
             If it seems confusing, that's because it is. I'm trying to get some documentation from Google to understand what exactly writers get out of this. There are hints that it is or might be a signal in search engines, but I don't know if that's necessarily always a positive signal.

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                lisabeamanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Glad I'm not the only one confused!! Thanks!
                
                I don't know about the search engines and what's going on with Google, but I can tell you that my Google traffic is higher than ever. I'm hoping this, along with the subdomain switch, are all steps in the right direction. Thanks!

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    seriousnutsposted 13 years ago

    All these sound so technical to me, but I am trying my very best. I'm not sure if I am doing this right though, as the rich snippets tool shows an error. Thanks Marisa for sharing this information and thanks to Jason too for the clear instruction.

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    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    The way I read it, and I did go and read up about it after you posted about the rel=me instead of rel=author, is that the rel=author is implemented site wide by Hubpages, and that we would only have to tick the box on Google+ and add rel=me to our profiles.
    
    That's what they said, the re=author goes in the html of the site then it is your profile page you add rel=me.
    
    I did also try it in quotes and the writing disappeared, I think the quotes is an html instruction and we can't write in html on the site.
    
    Possibly it can done by adding individual pages across our subdomains using an html capsule in each, but I think I'd rather wait for HP to roll out whatever changes they are making to the site so that we only have to put something in our profiles.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       That's exactly how I read it too, Izzy.  Jason doesn't agree. 
       
       The rel=author has been implemented by HubPages and is working, because the Rich Snippets Tool recognizes my profile is an "author page".  So that's good.  It's annoying we can't get the other bit to work, I guess we'll just have to be patient.

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          Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I was just following the directions, to the letter, in the Webmaster Tools page on the topic:
          http://www.google.com/support/webmaster … er=1408986
          It doesn't say to use rel=me. See below.
          
          -------------
          
          Link a webpage to your Google Profile
          
          To link to your Google Profile from the webpage containing your content, create a link like this:
          
          <a href="[profile_url]?rel=author">Google+</a>
          Replace [profile_url] with the your Google Profile URL, like this:
          
          <a href="https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202?
            rel=author">Google+</a>
          Your link must contain the ?rel=author parameter, and your anchor text must start or end with a + character. (You don’t need to be a Google+ user to do this, and you can use any anchor text you want.) If either of these is missing, Google won’t be able to associate your content with your Google Profile.
          
          -------------
          
          That said, I can't seem to get it to work. Not sure what was done wrong in implementing it, but it looks like no one has gotten it to work. (Paul tried, too, and it didn't work for him, either.)

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             mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

             It doesn't work for me either, no pics by my Hubs in searches etc.
             
             Edit, I should add it doesn't work using the simpler method you posted a few days back Jason, i.e. Google profile link followed by ?rel=author

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             Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Jason,
             
             I think the reason why it does not work is because the profile also has the rel=author tag that is automatically being put on all the hubs AND on the profile.  It's wonderful that you are putting it on our hubs. But it should not be in the profile. That is causing Google to get an error.
             
             The error I get is "This page has both rel=author and rel=me links. Please do not use rel=me links for a non-profile page."
             
             That error message is a little confusing. I think because Google can't tell if it's a profile or a hub until you remove the code that automatically puts the rel=author in our profile page.  It should only do that for our hubs. The fact that it's in our profile makes Google think our profile is a hub.
             
             How this helps shed some more light  on this. I realize it's a complicated issue.

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                Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                By jove, I think you've got it!
                
                Yes, those rel="author" attributes should be taken off self-pointing links on profile pages. That should fix it. I'll put in a ticket to engineering so we can fix this tout suite.

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                   Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Thanks Jason. Once that's done, we should be able to test the link to our Google Profile with Google's Rich Snippets Testing Tool to see if it passes. I already have the link in my profile using the alternative method with the + in the anchor.

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          Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Marisa, The fact that Google's Rich Snippets Tool recognizes your profile as an "author page" is not good. It should see it as a profile.  The hubs are our author pages. The reason why we have this error is because HP is automatically adding "rel=author" to our profiles.  It correct to add this to our hubs, but it should not be in the profile.  I reported this in the "Report a Problem" Forum.

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             Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Ok, so if I am understanding you correctly, we can't use the link right now on HubPages until HP corrects the existing code?
             
             Can you point me to somewhere that explains how to do this on Wordpress?
             
             I confess I couldn't follow the proper (coding) way of doing this even for my Wordpress blogs, so I wanted to use this method for them too - and I'm having the same trouble.
             
             Two more points:
             
             Once the code is fixed, which one do we use on our profile - rel=author or rel=me?
             
             Also, I do have a Google Plus profile and the instructions on the Google help page give an example which links to my Google Plus profile.  You're saying not to do that - is that true for everyone or only those without Google Plus?

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                Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                I can't help with Wordpress since I don't use it. All depends on if they allow HTML or not. 
                
                If you wait until HP adds the feature, you won't need to be concerned on how it's done. At this point I'd say that is the best thing to do since it won't work anyway right now.  Jason just replied to my post and said he is putting in a ticket to fix it.

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                   Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Yes, Wordpress does allow HTML but I am not technically savvy enough to hard code it into my theme. 
                   
                   If I put the code into my profile page, Wordpress strips out the code so I'm back where I started. 

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    Maralexaposted 13 years ago

    Glenn, are you saying that we use the rel=me on our profile pages and use the rel=author on our hub pages?

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       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I just posted a full explanation in the other thread. Sorry about that. I came here and found your question just now after posting it.
       
       It's more complicated because Google added an alternative method for people on sites that don't allow HTML coding in our profile.  What you said is correct. But we can't presently add rel=me on HubPages.  So Google created another method.  Either method works. But they are so so so different. See my full explanation in the other thread.

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14. 82

    Maralexaposted 13 years ago

    Also, I couldn't use ="https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202?  it is the "plus.google" part I couldn't use, because I don't have a plus.google account (yet).  And, the only way I could find my google acount number was by going to my google page and clicking "about".  When I right clicked the "about" tab and looked in properties, then I could find my google acount #.   That was incredibly difficult or rather, time-consuming to find.  I was surprised.  Between you and Marisa, I couldn't have possibly got that far.  Don't we have this detailed somewhere?

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       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       You got that wrong. You don't use the word "plus" in the url. You need to use a + sign in the anchor text. Such as "google+" or "+See my Goolge Profile"  ... but you don't need a Google+ account. That's another thing that makes all this so confusing. I think it was silly that Google included the requirement to have an anchor that starts or ends with a "+".  But they did and we need to do it that way.
       
       Or wait until HubPages adds the feature to do it the other way. Jason said it will be coming. That will allow us to enter our Google Profile URL somewhere and HP will create the HTML link with the proper coding. I assume they will use the simpler method with the "rel-me" tag, which was the first way Google implemented the authorship verification. But your see, we can 't use that on HP because we can't enter HTML in our profiles.

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    Maralexaposted 13 years ago

    my profile says:  maralexa+  the link I used was exactly as Marisa and you said (I think) ...with rel=me.  My point is:  IT WORKS!  Although google says it doesn't work -- it seems to work!  Am I crazy???   Would you care to try my profile link to my google profile page?  If I'm wrong of course I will wait.  Thanks for your patience.  sincerely.

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       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       No it's not working. The URL you coded is not correct. It does not go to your Google profile. If I show you the right way it will be moderated and deleted. So I'll show you a sample with 11111111 where your Google ID should go. ...
       
       You had https://profiles.google.com//?11111111?/rel=me
       
       The correct way is https://profiles.google.com/11111111?rel=author
       
       Notice that it should not be rel=me. That's the thing Google messed up with the alternative method for HP.
       
       If you make these changes to what you had, then you will link to your Google profile when you click it. But you also need to test it with Google's Rich Snippets Test.  That's where you'll find the error that HP needs to fix on their end before this is all working.

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    Maralexaposted 13 years ago

    I am so humbly grateful for your patience.

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    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    Just noticed today. At least one of the scraper sites that have stolen my content have claimed Google authorship.

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       PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Now that really is taking the p*ss! 

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       Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I thought that might happen.  I wonder how Google is going to handle that?

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          IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I think this will only actually be an issue until everything we publish already comes with authorship, and unfortunately we are being left behind at the moment while it is not working on HP.
          
          That said, Google already  had a system in place to detect who published what first.
          
          Whether it actually works or not is another matter.

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    3. 95

       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       IzzyM, The problem is that we don't have authorship completed yet on HubPages. I see you have the Google link in your profile as I do. But it is not verified. Non of us can do it yet. HP staff is working on giving us a way to to it right and do it easy. So understanding all the posts in this thread will not be necessary.  I have my authorship working on two other sites. But not on HP. Be patient. As soon as HP announces that it's ready, I would take advantage of it quick. The link you have is not correct anyway.
       
       Hopefully Google will be able to see who published first and kill the scraper site when they detect duplicate ownership. That's going to be interesting to see how that works out.

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          IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          LOL, I know the link isn't correct on my profile. I have two links there, one with rel=me and the other with rel=author.
          
          Just haven't got round to taking them off, seeing as neither work.
          
          Google is doing a really bad job of sorting out the scraper sites at the moment. For some reason they seem to be discounting my whole subdomain, so all the copied work rates higher than my original.
          
          I hope this is a temporary state of affairs.

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          1. 95

             Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Izzy - Did you send a letter of infringement to the webmaster asking them to take it down?  You need to do that to protect yourself. Neither rel-me or rel=author will work on HP right now because of the duplicate that HP is putting in incorrectly. They know about it and will fix it. But I guess the fix will come along with the implementation of the method to enter our Google Profile without the need for HTML coding. If only they would remove the duplicate now, our link using the "?rel=author" would work. Google added that alternative method just for sites like HP that don't allow HTML.

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                Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                So just to be clear, does that mean when you're using the "alternative method", you don't use the rel=me link anywhere at all?

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                   Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   I was very confused with that too. I also found it strange that they never mention using "?rel=me" on the URL. So I re-read Google's instructions many times just to see if I was missing something. They clearly state that the new (alternative)  method uses "?rel=author" after the URL for both content pages (Hubs) and Author Pages (such as HP Profile).
                   
                   The rel=me is only specified when you use the rel tag method, which is the original method. But that requires coding HTML. That's why they designed a way for us to include a rel=author on the URL after a "?" That does not require HTML. We can stick that in any URL field.
                   
                   I tried it both ways on another  site where I can code HTML. Both ways were approved by Google. So I know I've got the understanding correct.
                   
                   Remember that on HP the verification fails. So don't waste your time right now until HP fixes the bug that is coding the rel=author tag in our profile. Google says the author page (our HP profile) should only contain the rel=me tag or the ?rel=author on the url.

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    thisisoliposted 13 years ago

    Since the links to your author profile are all rel="author" the gprofile link on your author bioo should be
    
    http://plus.google.com/1111111111111?rel=me

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       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       thisisoli - where in the Google instructions do you see that?

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       mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

       On the latest Google instructions Oli they appear to have dropped the rel=me thing, although I have tried to do it the 'new' way on my own website and it still won't work, and Rich Snippets tells me I have both rel=author and rel=me on the same page (which I don't). To be honest I am at the point of giving up on the whole thing as the aggro involved in getting it to work does not seem to provide enough rewards, (if any by some some accounts)!

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          Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          mistyhorizon - Funny thing. I'm so glad you mentioned that. I was experimenting on my own site too. Trying it both ways. I even got it working both ways.
          
          But then I was curious to try to duplicate the bug that HubPages has, by placing both the rel=me and rel=author in the same page and of course that triggered the error. But then when I removed the rel=author, the error continued to show up stating that I still have both. But it also indicated that my site was verified correct. So I thought Google just gets stuck with the error message once it's triggered. I reported that to them but haven't heard anything back yet.
          
          So I wonder if you are getting the error along with the verification. The verified message is all the way down at the bottom of the test and might be missed when you notice the error higher up.

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             mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

             This is what I get when I put a link to one of my posts into Rich Snippets Glenn. Any suggestions welcomed:
             
             
             
             The following errors were found during preview generation:
             
                 This page has both rel=author and rel=me links. Please do not use rel=me links for a non-profile page.
             
             How to Grow and Prepare Onions for Exhibition | Grow Vegetab...
             grow-vegetables-at-home.com/how-to-grow-and-prepare-onions-for-exhibiti... - Cached
             The excerpt from the page will show up here. The reason we can't show text from your webpage is because the text depends on the query the user types.
             
             Note that there is no guarantee that a Rich Snippet will be shown for this page on actual search results. For more details, see the FAQ.
             Extracted Author for this page
             author
             linked author profile = http://grow-vegetables-at-home.com/about-me/
             Error: Author profile page does not have a rel=me link to a Google Profile (learn more)
             Extracted rich snippet data from the page
             hfeed
             hentry
             Rel
             name = Permanent Link to How to Grow and Prepare Onions for Exhibition
             rel = bookmark
             url = http://grow-vegetables-at-home.com/how- … xhibition/
             Warning: Missing required field "entry-title".
             Warning: Missing required field "updated".
             Warning: Missing required hCard "author".
             View rich snippets data as visible by a Custom Search Engine. Show »

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                Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                As long as HP leaves rel="author" in our profile, that will cause this error. We are waiting for HP to fix this.

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                   Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Yes, hopefully it'll get fixed soon. The ticket's been in to engineering, but they have a long queue.

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                      Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      Jason, I know you do and I'm not complaining. For that matter, I'm very pleased with how proactive HP is with making changes that have been a positive experience. My thanks to you and everyone on staff.

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                         Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         The rel="author" tag has been removed from profiles, but the link plus.google.com/9999999999999?rel=me does not work. We're going to have to enable a rel="me" to be added to the <a href> tag through another method. We're working on it - thank you again for your patience!

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                         1. 95

                            Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                            Jason, You did a better job than you thought you did. Now my HP profile verifies. Try checking my profile with Google's Rich Snippets Testing Tool and you will see that it shows "Verified: Authorship markup is correct for this page" at the bottom. 
                            
                            Now of course I took care of the other half of the requirement on MY profile. But once you add the rel="me" tag or the rel=author to the URL I'll need to remove my snippet. And so will everyone else who had coded it into their profiles.
                            
                            Please note that using rel=me on the URL is wrong.  If you use the rel tag attached to the URL after a question mark, then it must be with rel=author. Not rel=me.  See how I did it.

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                               Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                               Nice! We thought we had made a mistake yesterday, since in the documentation where they describe appending the ?rel=author to the Google Profile link, they say:
                               
                               
                               
                               This made us think they were talking about linking directly from Hubs, not the profile page.

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                               mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                               Yippee, my HP one now shows as verified at least, (no picture by Hubs in SERPS yet though). Any ideas on my previous comment re-my own website and the g+ button Glenn? Thanks (and sorry to keep pestering but you are the only person who seems to understand all of this pretty much totally).

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                   mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Sorry Glenn I should have been more specific. This was on my own Website, NOT my HP subdomain, so HP cannot affect my personal website in any way. This report came from an article on grow-vegetables-at-home.com (my site).

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                      Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      Oh, right.  I should have looked closer at the output from your Rich Snippets Test. I have it working on my own site.
                      
                      I looked at your code and guess what?  You made the same mistake HP made. You have a link in your about-me page pointing to itself with rel=author.  AND you don't have any rel=me tag.
                      
                      I assume your about-me page is your profile page. If that is correct then you want to do 3 things...
                      
                      1. Place a link in your about-me page pointing to your Google Profile with rel="me" - This is assuming you want to use the old method as I did. The new method is only required for websites where you don't have access to HTML programming. I am sure you know that. I'm just being thorough for other readers here.
                      
                      2. Place a link in your Goolge profile pointing back to your about-me page and click "This is about me".
                      
                      3. Link all your other pages where you wrote content to your about-me page with rel="author".
                      
                      Then run the Rich Snippets test and see what you get.  Let me know.
                      
                      I'm working on a lengthy Hub about all this.

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                         mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         Hi Glenn, okay, so I read that the whole rel=me thing was no longer necessary according to Google's latest and updated advice. Problem I now have is I am using the g+ button as a widget on the site which will of course point back to my Google profile. However this means it also appears on my 'About Me' page, so if I then put a rel=me link on the About Me page, surely the warning will still come up saying I have both rel=me and rel=author on my About Me page! Is there a way I can automatically have the rel=author appear on every post/page (apart from the About Me page) without having to manually add it each time?
                         
                         Quote from Google's latest instructions:
                         
                         "To create a link using the Google+ logo, you can use the Google Profile button Google Profile button.
                         
                         You can add your Google Profile link in several places; choose the option that works best for your site.
                         
                             A common footer, header, or navigation page that appears on every page. This is ideal if you manage a single-author blog."
                         
                         Link to this is: http://www.google.com/support/webmaster … er=1408986
                         
                         Still stuck therefore!!
                         
                         Thanks for your ongoing advice

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    Jason Menayanposted 13 years ago

    Glenn,
    
    I got it to work, too. Thank you! So the original instructions are now valid, at least until we roll out the new Profile page in a few months.
    
    Thank you again for your very valuable troubleshooting on this!

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       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Jason, Thank you. My profile is still working. Only one problem. NOW my hubs no longer get verified. I get an error in the Rich Snippets test.
       
       I see you removed the rel="author" from the HP profile and left it in the hubs. This is correct. So I don't know why it's failing. Now I am dumbfounded.
       
       The Error is...
       
       Error: Author profile page does not have a rel=me link to a Google Profile
       
       ...and it is happening on my hubs and on yours (your other username).
       
       Everything is correct so I think this is a bug with Google's  Rich Snippets test. Anyway, I found a blog stating that Sagar Kamgar from Google said the test tool had a bug with the alternate authorship mark-up method. So I think we are good now. We just have to be patient with the test tool.
       
       It's never easy, is it? 

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          Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Yes, I had figured the same thing based on the error messages that were coming up with the tool. Hopefully they'll update it soon.

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             mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I wonder if this is why on my own site I am getting error messages from the Rich Snippets tool even though I have the g+ button installed on every page of the site as they suggest for people who are the only contributors to a site.

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                Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Yes. That seems to be a bug in the Rich Snippets tool. As long as you have all your content pages linking to your Google Profile and your Google Profile linking to your site's home page you have it correct.

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                   mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Yes I have all my pages linking to my Google Profile, but on my Google profile I link back to my site's 'About Me' page, not to my site's homepage, does that matter Glenn?

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                      Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                      That's questionable. Google says that if you have a website with a single contributor, then (and I quote)  "Your Google Profile should link to back to the website’s home page"

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                         mistyhorizon2003posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         That confused me too Glenn, but mainly because the new instructions on Google indicated ALL the links on your Google Plus profile should link back to the various site's homepages. I even got as far as changing the links on my G+ profile to all the homepages, but had a change of heart before saving the changes as it 'felt wrong' based on what I had read previously. I suppose I could try it, but not sure whether to or not right now as my instincts still tell me it contradicts what they have banged on about before re-About Me pages.

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                         Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         I notice they've removed the "this page is specifically about me" box on the Links section of your profile, so I tried using the homepage.
                         
                         Trouble is, I have a static page as my homepage.  So now when I try the Rich Snippets tool, I just get told the page has no authorship information!  Grrrr.

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                            Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                            Marisa - That extra item to click was confusing a lot of people. So they just changed it today to make three sections on your profile. One for profiles, one for pages where you contributed (this needs further explanation), and a section for sites you recommended to others. That makes it easier to understand.
                            
                            If your home page does not mention you in a profile type arrangement, then just put it in the recommended list and the error will go away.

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                               Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                               Pardon?  What recommended list do you mean?
                               
                               I have my websites listed under the "Other Profiles" section.  Originally I used the link to my author page, but after reading the advice to link to the home page, I changed them all to the home page. 
                               
                               It's still not working.

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                         JamaGeneeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                         Glenn, I taught myself HTML and web design from scratch back when the internet was a toddler, then taught others, via email, how to build websites from scratch. I also do a bit of "remodeling" from time to time to my Blogger blog in the HTML.  Plus, I have no problem spotting a missing end tag or accidentally-deleted bracket instead of letting the software find it for me.
                         
                         All to let you know I'm by no means Coding Illiterate, but the posts here have me totally confused! (And gave me one colossal headache.) Do this, do that, then DON'T do this or that, followed shortly by replies that contradict the previous one.  Then another that contradicts that one.
                         
                         What EXACTLY are we trying to do? It appears the idea is to have Google recognize us as the true authors of our hubs (and blog posts if we have one or a personal website). Which sounds fairly straight forward and easy to accomplish by following instructions...IF we have the correct instructions to follow.
                         
                         I have a Google account, a single account at Hubpages and a Blogger blog.  All I really want to know is how to claim authorship at Google for both. It can't possibly be as difficult as it's being made out to be in the many pages of this forum post.
                         
                         Perhaps it would be wise to start a new forum topic with the most current information on what to do and not do to accomplish the above (with a reference link to this one for anyone who prefers confusion over clarity).
                         
                         Joanna / JamaGenee

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                         1. 95

                            Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                            JamaGenee - I have been working on a Hub with all the correct details. I was going to publish it today but Google just changed things again. So I need to update it before publishing it. I will not list it here since that would be self-promotional.
                            
                            The craziness is partly due to Google trying to compensate everyone who complained on the first round. Now today they changed things again due more feedback from people not understanding if they should check off "this page is specifically about me" or not. So they eliminated that by adding individual sections for links instead.
                            
                            So now I need to update my hub and hopefully publish it tomorrow. But I will be at a HubMeet so I may not get it done until Sunday. Sit tight. As a programmer myself, I hope to offer something that will make it all clear.

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                               JamaGeneeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                               Thanks, Glenn. It's Saturday evening, so I checked your hubs and see that this one isn't published yet.  No prob.  I'd much rather wait until you have the absolute latest, correct information to share with us than re-stock the Excedrin! :-)

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20. 75

    Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

    So, for those of us who haven't done this yet, are your (Jason's) earlier instructions correct now? [EDIT - answered, thanks!]
    
    Also, do I recall seeing a method by which it's possible to reveal to Google which pages are ours, but that is not automatically made public?  That is, if someone has several accounts or websites.

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       Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, you can do that by editing your Google Profile and changing who it's shared with. Keep in mind, though, that if you set up a reciprocal relationship between one of your sites and your Google Profile, then your picture *will* appear next to items you've authored in search results.

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          Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          
          
          The same is true if it's set up with Google-Plus? (I think it was mentioned earlier that it could be done either way.)
          
          Not to get too complicated, but would it be possible to set up the reciprocal relationship between some pages and Google-Plus, and between other pages and the Google Profile; and put different pictures on the profile and G-plus?  Or would the same picture be used everywhere?

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             Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Aficionada - Google+ and a regualr Google Profile are similar. The only difference is that Google+ has the added networking for posting and creating circles of friends, etc. Basically you can think of it as another Facebook.
             
             To answer your question, You can't have both. It's either a Google+ profile or it's a regular Google Profile without the social network.
             
             To prove my point, Google uses 301 redirects from profiles.google.com to plus.google.com and visa versa.  They do that so you don't need to go crazy changing all your links if you decide to open a Google+ account later or if you decide to drop it and go back to a regular profile.
             
             You asked a simple question and I give you a lot of extra stuff. Sorry about that.

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                Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks - I use Google-Plus a lot, so I know about that profile.  I actually had a Gmail account before G+, so I could have completed a Google profile at that point, but I didn't bother. 
                
                I know that Yahoo has some sort of section (Pulse?) that looks like their attempt at social networking, but I've never used it; however, it has seemed to me that different subdivisions of Yahoo allow different profiles (may be my misunderstanding of them), and so I wondered if possibly that might be true of Google as well - that is, different profiles in different subdivisions.
                
                Thanks for your detailed answer!

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    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    Someone explain to me in simple terms - I have both the rel=me and rel=author on my profile, but it is working now.
    
    Which one?

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       Jason Menayanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Looks like you can ditch the ?rel=me one, but verify using the Rich Snippets tool Glenn provides the link to above.

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          IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Excellent thanks! I used Glenn's link above to the Rich Snippet's tool and saw my subdomain had been verified. Don't know when, but it didn't happen when I put the links in.
          I am probably the only one on HP who ended up with both possibilities in the author page. I reckoned that if one finally worked and the other didn't, Google would ignore the other.

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       Glenn Stokposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Izzy, it is perfectly valid to have both. If you have other profiles on other sites, rel="me" is used to links all your profiles with each other. That's why the word "me" is used. It indicates that the profile you are linking to is ALSO me. I mean you.
       
       Problem is that we can't do this on HubPages. You need to be able to add HTML to include additional links to other profiles. Don't worry. The important thing is to link to Google. They will see the same inbound links from your other sites and they will know it's all YOU.
       
       Not to confuse you, but rel=me after a question mark is ignored. I know, I did enormous testing of all possible ways to screw up on my own business site to see how Google would behave with each possibility. That's how I figured all this out.
       
       Using "rel" on the URL with a question mark is the alternative method which only uses rel=author for all pages. This was meant to be easier as Google claims.

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    Time Spiralposted 13 years ago

    Fantastic! I was linked here because I started a related topic. I'm going to throw in my two cents.
    
    The rel="me" is specifically for sites with multiple authors/profiles/contributors, whatever.
    
    HP is currently linking to your profile page, from within HP, with the rel="author" tag.
    
    If you have a site, or article, that does not have multiple contributors, or a specialized profile page, then the rel="author" attribute should go directly to the Google profile page.
    
    In your Google profile, you must point back to the site that is using the "rel="author" or the rel="me" attributes. You do this by creating a link in the "contributor" section. You do NOT need to add an attribute to the link that is out-bound from your Google profile.
    
    I hope I'm not being too redundant here.
    
    Also, can we get an update from HP about adding the rel="me" functionality to our profiles?

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