What is the benefit of the new email verification authorship feature from Google?

As Google+, the new social network run by Google, continues to move along, the updates continue to roll out. The platform has been the recipient of quite a few enhancements since its impressive debut, each aiming to making it a worthy foe in the crowded and highly competitive social space. One of the latest updates, though a subtle improvement, gives Google’s social tool another unique quality that helps it stand out from the competition, in addition to an added perk that offers a little something for content publishers.

Keeping Publishers Connected to Their Content

In late June, Google launched Authorship Markup, an HTML initiative that was designed to connect authors to their content in the search results and help internet users locate quality content in the process. More recently, the search giant introduced a new method that makes it even easier for creators to link to the their content and claim ownership. Site owners who include their email address in the content they publish can now verify that email address to prove ownership through the Google+ platform.

The authorship concept was immediately embraced by content publishers. It is essentially Google’s way of identifying the trustworthy sources online and just how valuable they are to people searching for content online. The company actually takes a variety of factors into account when making the determination of whether a user will enjoy the content published by a specific author. Among them are the search query, page relevance, links, and search history to name a few. Adding authorship to your content was always beneficial, but now it is much easier to implement.

Claiming What’s Yours

Google has given authors a new way to verify the ownership of the content they publish and it all revolves around their email address and of course, Google+. Setting everything up only takes three quick steps:

Step 1: Include your name and email address on every web page you expect to be indexed and ranked in the search results. Keep in mind that the address must coincide with the domain name of your website.

Step 2: Link those content pages to your profile on Google+. In order to do this, you must use the rel=”me” attribute, which needs to be included in the HTML code that links the page to your profile.

Step 3: Verify your email address. The last step is also the most time consuming. Once logged into Google+, the verification process can be initiated from the “Work” section, where you change the “Phone” option to “Email” and then input your email address in the provided field. Next, you save the changes and click the “Verify” link, which triggers the delivery of a confirmation message to your inbox. Once you confirm the address, each web page that has your name and email address will list you as the author when it shows up in the search results.

The new email verification authorship update is smart on the part of Google. Not only does it give content publishers another reason to focus its search product, but also create a profile on Google+, which is exactly what it needs to keep up the good fight with Facebook.