What Is ‘Author Rank’ And How Does It Affect Your Website?

If you are a website owner, or keep up on the goings-on at Google, you might have heard of a new thing called Author Rank. If you haven’t heard of it yet, chances are you’ll start to very soon – this new system will be changing a good deal of things, including how people approach the internet as a whole. That’s right – Author Rank can change everything about how we use the internet. Intrigued?

Why Introduce Author Rank?

Before getting into what Author Rank is, you’ll have to understand a little about why it was introduced.

Google, no matter how many extra things it may tack on, is still a search engine at heart. This means that a majority of the income it makes is off of it’s search engine, and bringing people to websites that they want to see and enjoy… and, conversely, keep them away from websites filled with spam or useless information.

In recent years, the internet as a whole has grown in a new direction – less towards connections with websites, and more towards connections with actual people. We read blogs (and start writing them) because we enjoy reading what certain people have to say. Good writers write good content, and we tend to want to keep reading content they offer, as well as discover new quality writers. Google realized this, and decided to develop the idea of Author Rank.

What is “Author Rank”?

Now we come down to it – what is Author Rank, and how does it play into the new people-to-people based internet interaction?

Author Rank, as well as Authorship, are how Google is changing to fit a socially-based internet. It’s the method used to tag authors to their written contributions, no matter where they may lie on the internet. This means you could write a comment on a video, write a blog post, or write an article for a colleague’s website, and still be able to trace it back to the source… you!

How Does This Affect Your Website?

Google’s new Author Rank system gives small-time writers and websites a chance to shine. Once you get into the Author Rank system, you can get noticed for your quality work wherever it’s posted.

Here is an example of how the system works: A friend of your really enjoys your website, and really enjoys your stuff. Later on, when they’re searching for Google… searching for something you just happen to cover extensively on your website… your friend will get shown the relative content on YOUR website! Why? Google has recognized that your friend loved your site, and wants to pattern their search results to something you enjoy.

This may redefine what search engine optimization means for website owners, as now the quality of content on a website will potentially matter a great deal more than keyword and repeated phrases.

The service is still new and developing, but any website will want to jump on board Google’s new Author Rank system – it can only mean more views and traffic headed to your site!