Google Does Not Use rel=me Microformats

Apr 26, 2018 - 7:52 am 2 by

Google Rel Me

Image credit to Shutterstock

Back in 2011, Google came out with authorship a way of Google understanding which content was written by which author, no matter what domain they posted their content on. So if you published at SER, SEL, Medium, etc, it would communicate that all those articles across multiple sites were written by the same author. Google killed authorship in 2014 and then two years later, gutted the rest of it from Google's features or backend.

So using rel="me", the Microformats no longer makes sense from at least a Google search perspective.

John Mueller from Google confirmed this on Twitter saying he isn't aware of how using it would be helpful to Google's algorithms.

I do miss authorship, I loved seeing a face of who wrote the article in the search results interface. But I think SEOs abused it, I can be wrong, and Google dropped it.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 15, 2024

Mar 15, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Previous Story: Google: Having Duplicate Meta Descriptions Doesn't Mean Your Site Is Broken