In the age of new semantic web, authority of an author plays an important role in determining the value of the content. Although, Google has not introduced any author rank yet, Virante & Mark Traphagen have come up with their own Author Rank tool that will help authors in assessing their authority & value.
Virante is clear that Google is not using any system of Author Rank, despite the search giant making number of moves in the form of Google Authorship and Google+ Profiles. Matt Cutts too quoted saying:
"We’re doing a better job of detecting when someone is more of an authority on a specific space. You know, it could be medical. It could be travel. Whatever. And try[ing] to make sure that those rank a little more highly if you’re some sort of authority… we think might be a little more appropriate for users".
John Mueller in September this year too confirmed that Google Authorship is not yet a ranking factor in search.
The Author Rank Tool by Virante
The tool will help you quickly evaluate the authors on the basis of the value that they bring. The Author Rank Tool is currently in beta phase but will help you in finding out the author rank on the basis of an algorithm that Virante has created. It will consider quality, quantity, and diversity of authors in their Google authorship posts. It will take into account:
- Link value of websites an author is contributing to
- Volume of the content produced by the author
- Link value of the content produced by the author
- Diversity of the websites the author is contributing to
You can calculate the author rank of your or somebody else's Google+ profile using the tool. The tool provides:
- An aggregate overall value of the author based on the value, volume, and diversity factors
- Theme score
The tool doesn't overlay a social layer in the terms of plus ones or the content shared by other authors. Quantity of content and link values of the sites might influence the score.
Virante has done a great job as there was a great need to evaluate author authority easily & quickly. While most of the tools claiming to identify authority score look at factors such as followers, the tool by Virante is doing a more complex but potentially more valuable job.
Instead of looking at ranking of fellow authors, it is a good idea to access your own ranking and track this over time. This way, you will be able to monitor your progress and establish yourself with an author with high authority.
