You may have noticed that recently your Google searches are showing Google profile image links to Google profiles. Which makes the sites in the SERPs with Google author profile image links stand out and might generate more click thrus (that would be more search engine visitors).
I’d like to say it’s really easy to get your site associated with your Google Profile, but it isn’t. We’ve all associated our domains with Google Webmaster tools etc… where we either add meta tag or a file temporarily to our domains to get them associated with Google Webmaster Tools, relatively easy right 
Here’s how you get your Google Profile associated with a WordPress site, Google thought it would make it difficult and make us link to our Google Profiles!!!
1. Register for a Google Profile (add a profile image or there’s not much point having your profile shown next to your SERPs).
2. Choose a page on the domain that you are happy to link to from every page of the site (or at least link from every page you want to associate your Google Profile with).
3. On that page add a link to your Google profile with format:
<a href="https://plus.google.com/115218034784885853617" rel="me">Google Profile</a>
An About page would be perfect for this, since I don’t have an About page on this site I used WordPress SEO Plugin for the link.
4. Add a link from every page of your site to the page with the above link with the following format:
<a href="https://www.domain.com/page-on-site-with-google-profile-link" rel="author">Anchor Text</a>
You can add this site-wide link by editing a theme template file (footer.php for example), add a text widget to a sidebar or do what I’ve done, add a new link to the Blogroll and give it rel author.
You can see my link to the WordPress SEO Plugin page in my Blogroll (bottom left of site).
Adding a rel=”author” link to your Blogroll
There’s a slight problem with adding a link with rel=”author” via the WordPress links page, it’s actually not setup to allow this! Alas, there’s a workaround. While on the WordPress Add Links page temporarily turn of javascript. When javascript is turned off you can type author into the rel box, save the link and turn javascript back on (a pain I know, but it works).
Adding a rel=”author” link to Navigation Menu Link
Found an easier way to add a rel=”author” link. If you use a theme that includes custom menus (like Stallion Theme) you can add a rel=”author” to a link within a custom menu.
If you haven’t used custom menus before see WordPress Menu Manager Stallion Theme Feature.
Under Appearance >> Menus on the top right of the screen click the Screen Options link that opens a drop down options menu at the top of the Dashboard.
Tick the Link Relationship (XFN) box as shown in the image below.
Click the Screen Options link again to close the drop down option menu.
On a custom menu you’ve built either add a link to the page you have the rel=”me” Google Profile Link on or if already on your custom menu edit it and add the work author (just author, nothing else) to the Link Relationship (XFN) box box as shown below:
Don’t forget to click the Save Menu button at the bottom when done.
Checking a Google Profile Author Link is Verified
Go to Google Webmaster Tools Rich Snippets Testing Tool and enter any URL from the domain (home page for example) and the results will tell you if the site is verified, see example in the image below:
If you see text like this at the bottom, it’s worked:
author
profile = http://www.stallion-theme.com/stallion-wordpress-seo-plugin
verified = Verified: The author link points to an author profile page on the same domain as this page.
There you go, a very simple way to have your Google Profile linked to your search results All you have to do now is wait for Google to re-index your site and add the data to it’s search results (no idea how long this takes).
Lets hope Google simplifies this in the future when thousands of newbies who struggle adding a meta tag to a site start asking for support. Why Google didn’t use the Google Webmasters data for this is beyond me?
David Law
Website - WordPress SEO
3 responses to Highlight Google Search Results
I use to see popular bloggers have their profile linked with search result.
This increases loyalty of your blog
I was searching for this to integrate my Google profile in my blogs search.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Wordpress Authors Image
I am using Stallion SEO Ad Theme 6.2. There is under “Promotion Options” the choice to turn on Social Network Profile Links which will through the profile page link to our image eg. https://plus.google.com/115218034784885853617/
I would like to ask, what other options in the Stallion SEO Ad Theme 6.2 should i configure in order google picks up and indexes the image ?
Also What about on the Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Options ? Anyting i should do there as well ?
Highlight Google Search Results
Google Plus Image in Google SERPs
Having your Google+ image associated with your sites Google search results isn’t part of Stallion.
You have to set it up as described above or use another method. Google has changed what works a couple of times and I’ve had problems getting some sites to be considered mine (get my Google Plus image associated with SERPs) so I’m not 100% sure how it works!
I was about to say I setup everything correctly for this domain, but 6+ months on my SERPs still don’t have my Google+ image associated with them, just checked and it is, yeah
I wrote this article in July 2011, I setup highlighting code for this site before the end of July and it took over 6 months to work! Another site I setup at the same time took about 3 months for the images to show up, so be very, very patient.
Check the Google Webmaster Tools Rich Snippets Testing Tool for your domain and if it says you have it setup correctly WAIT months for your Google Plus image to show up. If it says something isn’t setup correctly fix the problems.
David
Highlighting Google Search Results
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