Display Author Profile Photos On Google Search

Maybe you have spotted one of the recent changes on Google search results pages already. Some website listings, Lifehacker’s for instance, display an author profile photo next to their listing in the Google search results. This only happens on pages where a single author can be easily identified, which is the case for most blog posts. The question is: How can you get the same treatment?

It is thankfully not super complicated to configure your site to be compatible with the new author photo snippets that show up on Google Search. It is at this point in time however not guaranteed that your photo, or a photo of one of your authors, will appear in Google Search. It is rumored that Google has enabled that feature only for selected blogs and sites.

Nevertheless, it does not hurt to add the code to your site and Google Profile. And if your site gets picked by Google, you can expect a higher CTR (click-through rate) than sites without an author profile photo in Google.

Lets take a look at how it looks like in the search engine if it is configured correctly and enabled by Google:

Here are the steps that you need to undertake:

Creating An About Author page

You first need to create an about author page on your website. You then need to link to that page from all posts that this author writes. The link needs to use the rel=”author” parameter. How it is added depends largely on how the author information are posted on the post pages.

Here on Ghacks, the code looks like this:

<p class=”tags”>Author: <a href=”http://www.ghacks.net/author/martin/” title=”Posts by Martin Brinkmann” rel=”author”>Martin Brinkmann</a>

Adding the code can be an easy task on single author blogs, but a bit more complicated on multi-author blogs. The best way to add support on those blogs and sites is to install a plugin like Allow REL= and HTML in Author Bios that adds the support.

You are not yet finished though. The about author page needs to exist for every author on the site. The actual page can contain any kind of information. One important part though is that it needs to link to the Google profile of that author. The link to the Google profile needs to contain the parameter rel=”me”.

<a rel=”me” href=”http://profiles.google.com/ID”> Author Name </a>

Linking Back from Google Profile

In the last step, we need to link back from the Google profile to the about page on the website. Open your Google Profile, click the Profile icon at the top and then the Edit Profile button at the top. Locate links on the right side and select the Add custom link option.

You need to link to the author page on the website, and enable the “this page is especially about me”. You also need to make sure that a photo is added to the profile.

Testing the rich snippet

Open the rich snippet testing tool and enter an url from your website that is linked to a single author (a blog post for instance).

If you see the author photo next to the listing, you have configured the author profile photo support on your site correctly.

To summarize:

• Create an about author page on your site. Link from that page to the Google Profile of that author with the rel=”me” tag. Link the author’s blog posts on the website with the rel=”author” tags to the about author page on the blog.
• Add a photo and a link to the author’s about page on the Google Profile of that author. Make sure the “this page is especially about me” box is ticked.
• Check for correct implementation with the help of the Rich Snippet Tool.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday August 18, 2011 -
Tags:Google, google profile, webmaster, wordpress

Responses so far:

1. Rüstem says:

   August 18, 2011 at 5:14 pm

   I guess having a profile picture other than a proper face-shot eliminates the possibility of having your content linked to your profile, non? I’ve been using the same drawing -everywhere- as my profile picture/avatar for years now (it has become sort of like my logo if I do say so myself), and although I’ve got no problem with showing my silly mug on the internet, I would rather not for the sake of consistency. :) I hope they find a way to link to personal profiles in search results without showing profile photos, then it’d be ideal for me.

   Also I’d like to note that having a Blogger blog kind of makes identity confirmation easer for users (especially for one-author blogs that use the rel=autoher tag) since upon creating your blog, it’s associated with your both Google Profile and Webmaster Tools accounts (including the address on your profile is optional obviously).

   Reply
2. Kaushik says:

   August 18, 2011 at 5:18 pm

   Google has simplified the process.

   Simply link to your Google Profile page from your blog pages using the rel=”author” tag, and then add the link to your blog’s homepage to Google Profiles. rel=”me” is not required, unless you link to the author page on your domain.

   The old method will continue to work.

   http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1408986

   Reply
3. Sagar says:

   October 5, 2011 at 12:17 pm

   I came across an awesome service which creates a plan about how to optimize your website for any keyword on any search engine. An ideal tool to optimize your website without having to learn and understand Search Engine Optimization processes

   Reply
4. Jatinder says:

   October 21, 2011 at 7:17 am

   one query, do we have to create author and add link to Google Profile for every new page we create?

   So is it like this, every page should have author and me link and its respective URL in Google Profile?

   Can anybody clear out, thanks!

   Reply
   • Martin Brinkmann says:

     October 21, 2011 at 8:15 am

     Jatinder, you can either link from the post author link directly to Google, or link first to a profile on the same site and then to Google. both work.

     Reply