Eric Nagel

Eric Nagel

CTO, PHP Programmer, Affiliate Marketer & IT Consultant

Rel Author Markup for Thesis

I have been, or can be if you click on a link and make a purchase, compensated via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value for writing this post. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Inspired by a Tweet by Tom Critchlow

Ok, time for me to feel smug. Managed to get rel author markup working and appearing in SERPs for my tumblr site:http://t.co/6jsVAwJ

I decided to attempt to do the same thing with my own blog (EricNagel.com), which runs on Thesis.

The first step was adding my Google Plus profile URL to my Profile (/wp-admin/profile.php) in the Website field. It’s important to add ?rel=author to the end of your profile URL, so mine is

https://plus.google.com/111702920195070669389?rel=author

Next, I’m going to edit

/wp-content/themes/thesis_18/lib/custom/custom_functions.php

and add:

function custom_get_the_author_link() {
	return get_the_author_meta('user_url') . "\" rel=\"author";
}
add_filter('author_link', 'custom_get_the_author_link');

Upload this file after you’ve made the changes. It’s a little ugly, but that’s the only way I could trick thesis into adding the proper “rel” property to the href.

Next, make sure none of your links (/wp-admin/link-manager.php) have the Relationship author. If so, edit those links and uncheck the Identity box, another web address of mine.

Thesis Byline DisplayThe last step of changes: go to your Thesis Design Options page, and under Bylines, check Show author name in post byline and Link author names to archives. Do not check Add nofollow to author links.

Finally, it’s time to test out the changes.

The first step in testing is to go to your site and make sure it looks good. You should see your name under a blog post’s headline, and it should be linked to your Google Plus profile.

Visual test
Visual test

Next, using Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool, enter an individual post’s URL, and click the Preview button. You should see your Google Profile picture next to the search result.

Google Snippet Preview
Google Snippet Preview

(Note: my blog also has breadcrumbs marked-up, so you’ll see that in my preview, too.)

Now we play the waiting game. Google has to re-visit these pages to see the change, but you should see the results shortly!

Comments
  • Trackback: Rel=
  • John Phung
    Posted September 9, 2011 7:45 am 0Likes

    Thanks! Got it working on my site using your code…couldn’t get it to work with the thesis openhook plugin so I ended the custom_functions.php manually.

    • Eric Nagel
      Posted September 9, 2011 8:27 am 0Likes

      Working with the custom code can be scary at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll realize how powerful it can be!

      I see you did yours a bit different, but that’s cool! Way to adapt…

  • Muhammad Ali
    Posted December 15, 2011 9:32 pm 0Likes

    Dude I followed the entire thing step by step but I still don’t see anything in the Rich Snippets result :/ My byline is showing, it is linked to my Google Plus profile, added the stuff in custom functions correctly, still no results in rich snippets 🙁 Please help.

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  • Nate
    Posted January 17, 2012 2:48 pm 0Likes

    Hi Eric, I originally set this up before reading your post. I used the tips mentioned on the author profile tutorial by Google. I ran the rich snippets tool and it looks fine. Still no results…before attempting your method, how long did it take Google to update your serp results? Also, it should apply to old SERPS too right?

    Thanks for any feedback!

    Nate.

    • Eric Nagel
      Posted January 17, 2012 2:54 pm 0Likes

      I think it took about 5 weeks, then when I changed G+ profiles (from my gmail to my Google Apps account) Google dropped it, and hasn’t picked it back up again.

      • Nate
        Posted January 25, 2012 12:08 pm 0Likes

        So I was able to get it to show up for a few days. But it looks like Google censored it.

        I originally had logos of other social networks in the background.

        But I am wondering if my (tap a keg of beer) TKB hat is to blame?

        No notification from Google either…so it’s kinda of a bumber. I wonder if I just need to re-submit the form to them.

  • Panda47
    Posted February 14, 2012 8:20 pm 0Likes

    The youtube video in the post has been taken down. Just letting you know.

    • Eric Nagel
      Posted February 15, 2012 12:20 pm 0Likes

      Thanks – the video was Homer Simpson sitting in a chair, waiting. Fox doesn’t like YouTube having any Simpson’s clips on their site 🙁

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