Remember last year when Google was making a big deal about creating your Google Profile. And none of us really understood why this would be valuable. Today, we’re getting a glimpse.
It looks like Google is going to be supporting Authorship Markup, and will utilize this as a signal in Google search results. The idea is that this will be a great way for Google to filter recognized authors from optimized spam content. Now, this will only be one signal to add to the thousands that prioritize Google’s search results. But, it could be a big one. The question is, what’s preventing people from claiming someone’s authorship of their page? What task force is going to be set up to track this?
If they’re site-specific, and lead to an author’s page, this seems doable. Some sort of grandiose and universal standard seems more tricky.