How Long Does It Take Author Info To Show Up In Google Results?

UPDATE JULY 19, 2013: The information below was posted in January 2013.  We have since seen a client’s author verification take place in 6 days.  We used Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure the verification was set up correctly and that may have sped the process up.  Now back to our previous post . . .

So how long does it take author info to show up in Google results?  We’ve seen this take months (example 1 example 2), but our answer is 3 weeks.  We would love to think that Google just loves us that much more than the other folks, but it may just be that they are speeding the process up as it becomes more refined.

Leave a comment letting us know the date you set authorship up and your domain/page and we will track how long it takes on an ongoing basis! (That will make this post an even better resource for those who come after you.)

We made the changes on December 21. We’ve checked daily (weekdays) since then and noticed it showing up yesterday, Monday, Jan 14.  That’s actually 24 days, but we’ll give Google the benefit of the doubt and say it happened when we weren’t watching over the weekend, which is right at 3 weeks.

Here’s a quick look at how the authorship verification looks in SERPs . . .

Google Author Page
NOTE: In Google’s example image of this author display, the author’s name shows up in bright blue. The example author is in over 800,000 Google+ Circles, which may have something to do with his name displaying in a different color than mine. 🙂

Google’s authorship verification system involves linking your Google+ Profile to any content that you write.  You can do this adding the site to your “Contributes To” section in Google+,  and either verifying a branded email address with site itself or inserting a “rel=author” code snippet to any page with your content.  We inserted the code snippet.

[sam id=”10″ codes=”true”]

Why Bother With Author Verification?

Besides being vain and liking having your picture show up on a SERP, what advantage is there to bothering with Author Verification?

There is a lot of strong speculation that “Author Rank” will play heavily into Google’s algorithm very soon (they’ve been working on it for years) and that may make huge waves in the SEO industry.

What we do know is that authorship verification means that Google trusts you and that you should receive more click-thrus because of your picture and profile info showing up in SERPs, regardless of if it actually affects the rankings themselves.

Do your blog a favor and take just a few quick minutes to verify your authorship. And let us know how long it takes in the comments.

15 Responses

  1. Thanks for the info on Google Authorship, Eric. I’ve just myself added it to http://www.alphatalk.com and I’m waiting for my profile photo to start showing up. I’ve done the verification checks and everything looks good to go!

    Reply

      1. Your is pic up! Good job. make sure you are not logged in to Google+ when looking for authorship or placement. If you are logged in, Google gives you a view it thinks “you want” to see. Not what others on the web actually see.

        Reply

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