This is the new hot thing in Google search, showing the author profile next to search result. Who doesn’t want to see pictures showing up next to his articles shown in the Google search result.
Showing author profile picture next to search result is the next phase of evolution in Google search result. Just seeing only plain old boring texts have become unbearable. So showing profile pictures is a cool thing. But it comes with a cost. Images slow down the search result which has been already slowed down with plenty of other factors which Google shows in search result.
Anyway, web is already flooded with the tutorials on how to show author profile picture next to Google search result. I tried to follow some of the tutorial but it didn’t work. Those tutorials are so complex. I don’t like complexities, complexity is waste of time. I like to simplify complexities and present in a manner which is understood to all.
In this tutorial I’ll explain how to show author profile picture in Google search result for WordPress blog posts.
Step 1 – Add rel=”author” to WordPress theme
First update your WordPress to the latest version as the WordPress 3.2+ has support for the stuff I’ll explain below and you don’t need to add any special function to the theme.
The first step is to adding rel=”author” attribute in the WordPress theme.
Add following line or something similar in your WordPress theme’s single.php file.
[sourcecode]<span class="author">By <!–?php the_author_posts_link(); ?–></span>[/sourcecode]
Step 2 – Add Author page link to Google+ profile
You will have to tell Google which one is your author page.
To do so grab your author page link from WordPress blog which will be something like http://www.ajaykumarsingh.com/author/admin
Visit your Google+ profile page
Click on Edit Profile
From Edit profile page click on links.
Add a new link to your author page on WordPress blog.
Don’t forget to tick “This page is specifically about me” option.
Save and Exit the profile edit.
That’s it
Just wait for next update and hopefully you will see your shiny little picture next to your blog posts in Google search result, provided Google likes you ;)
Better get a nice looking picture added in your Google+ profile.
FAQ
How much time it takes Google to show profile picture in search results
I don’t know. People say it may take couple of days, let’s say, 1-4 days 1 month. I’ve just implemented it today so I’ll keep an eye and will update when it shows up.
I’ve single author WordPress blog, can I add link back to my home page? Or do I need to add link to author page only?
Well I’m not too sure about this. But it makes sense to add author page link to Google+ profile. You can try adding link to home page instead of author page and see what happens.
I’ve seen some tutorials suggesting that we need to add Google+ profile link to WordPress page as well. Is it required?
Well not sure. I’ve also seen tutorials explaining the same. I’ve already added link to my Google+ profile.
I can’t find author page on my blog. When I click on author name it goes to the home page.
You might have used some plugin to suppress author page generation. If so then you need to enable the author page generation. If you are using Robots Meta plugin then there is option to allow Author page generation.
I don’t want to allow author page generation as it creates duplicate pages.
You can make author pages to have rel=”noindex”. Try using Robots Meta plugin.
Updates on 10-Oct-2011
Finally the good news, Google starts to show my profile picture in the search results. So the above method works.
Just today I see profile picture showing up in the search result. See an example for Google Chrome Crash post.
So it took about 1 month of time for the author profile picture to show in Google search result.
However it is strange that Google profile picture doesn’t show for some of the older posts. E.g. see the result for Outlook on iPad post, the picture doesn’t show.
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