#Infographic: The ins and outs of Google authorship

Google isn’t just interested in content. They want to know who’s writing it and how they fit in within a given niche. That was one of the original concepts surrounding their alleged Author Rank project, something that few outside of Google truly understand and that nobody within Google is talking about with the public.

What Google did officially release is Authorship, a way that writers can be tagged to their content through their Google+ account. When a user is an official Google author (something that sounds more official than it really is), their articles will often carry their profile picture to the left of the listing on Google’s search results page. In theory, Google is able to use this type of information and everything they gather from both users and readers and make determinations about whether or not an author is trustworthy when writing about particular topics.

Some in the search marketing world say that it’s a must-have, that it’s already in place, and that Google may never officially announce it for fear of sparking SEOs to take it more seriously. Others are saying it’s a red herring, that Google really doesn’t apply it to any parts of their search ranking algorithm, and that spending so much time building authority in subjects is a partial waste of time.

Regardless of who is correct, this infographic from Internet Marketing Inc. tells a pretty strong story about the fabled Google Author Rank.