A presentation at SMX East, in the session, "From Authorship to Authority: Why Claiming Your Identity Matters

1. From Authorship To
Authority: Why Claiming
Your Identity Matters (#smx
#23C)
Smoke Signals and Social Signals: A
Look at the Patents and Papers
Bill Slawski
Webimax
@bill_slawski

3. Agent Rank (Part 1)
Imagine a Web where:
Every piece of content was digitally signed by an author and
publisher, whether web page or blog post or comment,
Where attribution was easy, and
Rankings of pages depended in part on the reputations of
the people involved in the creation of the content on those
pages.
Authorship Markup is Agent Rank’s Digital Signature come
to life.
Google’s Agent Rank Patent Application - http://searchengineland.com/googles-agent-rank-patent-application-
10487

4. Agent Rank (Part 3)
When you endorse with a +1 or share, you’re endorsing the author
not the content.
Your +1 has a different weight than mine.
Your reputation rank is based upon topics you’re an authority
upon.
Your endorsement might not count at all if you’re not a trusted
agent.
Agent Rank - http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%222011
0289095%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20110289095&RS=DN/20110289095

5. Author Badges
Content Author Badges - http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%
2220110191416%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20110191416&RS=DN/20110191416
An Author Badge provides
attribution.
An Author Badge also allows
visitors to verify who you are!

6. Credential Scores
Confucius and Its Intelligent Disciples: Integrating Social with Search (pdf) - http://infolab.stanford.edu/~echang/Confucius-
VLDB10.pdf
Ranking User Generated Web Content - http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/WO2011050495
Google’s Edward Y. Chang has noted that the credential score from
Confucius Q&A sites can be used in other social networks.
Credential Scores are a measure of authoritativeness on different
topics.
An Authority score is based on an analysis of the quality of
responses on a social networking site and contributiveness scores of
people who posted that content.
A Contributiveness score is based on the quality of something you
post or upload to a social network and the authority scores of people
who respond to that content.

7. Grouptivity
Page Ranking System Employing User Sharing Data -
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20090125511.PGNR.&OS=dn/20090125511&RS=DN/20090125511
10 months before the launch of Google Plus, Google acquired the social
mail patent filings of Grouptivity
In addition to being able to put contacts into different public and private
groups, one patent describes how conversations and interactions might
be ranked in search results.
A wide range of social sharing activities might impact the ranking of
content, by itself, or in conjunction with an algorithm like PageRank.
Ranking weights are normalized in that sharing content with a smaller
group that gets re-shared a lot by that group may make that content rank
higher than content shared with a very large group that doesn’t get re-
shared at such a high rate.

8. Credibility of an Author Online
Credibility of an author of online content - http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8126882.
PN.&OS=PN/8126882&RS=PN/8126882
Originally aimed at Google Knol, but not limited to it.
Describes a verification process, and a way of gauging authors' credibility
in a way that might impact how content they create and contribute might
be ranked in search results.
Many credibility signals involved are offline signals:
(1) employer, (2) revenue publications have earned, (3) relevancy of
author's employment to online content, (4) membership in
organizations, (5) verification of author's education, (6) citations of
author's online content by others in other publications, (7) awards
and recognition, (8) relevancy of awards and recognition to online
content, (9) feedback on online content by one or more
organizations, and (10) more.

9. Bing and Yahoo
Both Bing and Yahoo have patent filings discussing how user generated content on
social networks/blogs might be considered, measured, and determined to be
authoritative.
Both look at content and outside signs of authoritativeness such as education,
employment, papers and patents published, and other indicia that an author knows
what he or she is talking about.
The Microsoft patent filing also looks at:
A temporal analysis of link sharing with authority based on a propensity to link early
to Web pages that become popular. A topical authority based on an author’s links and
content updates in specific topic areas. A popularity and influence measure based on
properties of the authors such as number of followers, number of their microblog
posts shared by others, mention counts of authors, and number of on-line friends.
http://www.seobythesea.com/2009/11/how-search-engines-may-rank-user-generated-content/
http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/05/microsoft-on-ranking-authors/

10. Some Personal Takeaways
To earn authoritative links, it helps to become an authority that others
want to link to. And it helps to provide authoritative content that they
will link to.
Clients are more likely to be perceived as the subject matter experts
they are with the right tools and coaching.
It’s never a good idea to sink all your hopes and ambitions in just one
third-party site that you don’t have control over.
Include signs of expertise and education and credibility, trust seals, in
social profiles and on web pages.
Show off that authoritativeness in interactions with others in helpful
and useful ways that not only build authority, but also build positive
relationships.

11. Thanks
Bill Slawski
Senior SEO Consultant
Find me at:
http://www.webimax.com/
https://twitter.com/bill_slawski
http://www.linkedin.com/in/slawski
https://plus.google.com/u/0/106515636986325493284/posts
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SEO-by-the-Sea/121115417920156