Schmidt is releasing a book in June entitled, “The New Digital Age” where he discusses China and its involvement with internet censorship. According to the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt also covers some other interesting topics in his book—they describe the future of Google rankings.
Before we dive into what Schmidt said, let’s take a look at a topic we have covered before here at Site-Reference. It is Google Authorship.
Back in an article dated from October 2012, I mentioned the possibility of Google Authorship becoming a ranking signal. And when it was released, Google made a statement that led people to believe online verification could become part of its algorithm.
Authorship, as defined by Google, allows you to verify ownership of your online content. This is accomplished by creating a Google+ profile (big surprise) and adding markup to your site or submitting your email to Google.
What is the purpose of Google Authorship?
In my opinion, Google wants to “de-spam” the internet further and promote authenticity in its search engine. Verified authors who implement Google Authorship will see their image beside their content in the search results.Though Google is probing people to become more authentic and reveal themselves to “the world,” if you don’t take advantage of Google Authorship, it doesn’t mean you are a spammer. But as you will find out soon…it may mean you will not rank as well as someone who has verified his/her online account.
The fact is…we all know that you won’t find any spammers trying to reveal their identities, so Authorship could be another attempt by Google to weed out spammers who are falsely trying to manipulate the search results.
Schmidt Lets The Cat Out of The Bag
Schmidt, in his new book, discusses how privacy will not have a place online and anonymity will cease to exist. He postulates that the government will also require some kind of online verification.Regardless of whether or not Schmidt’s ideas will materialize into reality, it is important to note what he said regarding Google….
“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”
We touched on relevance before when discussing linking and content, but never in this context. For Schmidt to mention that remaining anonymous equates to irrelevance, we can surmise that Authorship could be more influential than we first assumed. We know that relevance is crucial in this post-Panda, -Penguin internet but we have never heard it tied to Authorship.
It’s obvious that Google is tying the hands of every person who is trying to manipulate the search results. You can’t get away with any questionable technique today, and if you do, it won’t last long. Google is rewarding authentic, quality businesses that work to please their audience with high-quality content that is shared and enjoyed by many.
So, there you have it…a new ranking signal is about to be birthed…
How do you feel about this?
Original article in site-reference.com
Google Chairman Reveals a New Ranking Signal About to Launch
