AuthorSure allows you some scope around what is shown on the author page for each author. The author page is a page that WordPress generates for each author and normally shows a list of posts by that author. Whether full posts or post excerpts are shown is down to your WordPress theme.
AuthorSure adds the following information before the archive (list) of posts:
- Optional title. E.g. About author name
- Optional short or extended bio
- Optional subheading then precedes list of contact methods
- Optional text that appears alongside the icon for each contact method
- Optional sub-heading that precedes the list of posts
The following video tutorial steps through the process of setting up AuthorSure using the author box method which is the one used on the CaptionPix WordPress Plugin site.
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About Russell
Technologist, software engineer, internet marketer and WordPress plugin developer with experience in Finance, Telecoms and the Media.
First, a courtesy caution – my site/blog is adult only so do not go there if you might be offended.
That said, I am on WordPress 3.3.1. I am using the “Allow REL= and HTML in Author Bios” plugin (Version .1 | By John Pozadzides), with a manually added footnote to each post using the “authorname+” code linking to the Profile page which then has a link to my Google profile, and the Google profile page in turn links back to the site.
Pretty cumbersome, to say the least.
I would much prefer to use your excellent plugin, but will there be a conflict with the existing setup, or can I leave all that in place and use your plugin/method going forward?
Thanks for your thoughtful intricate work on this – I can testify to the hours of time and experimentation it takes to do this manually.
Regards,
Ram
Err – Hi Ram. Thanks for the warning.
Unfortunately, we think you will need to remove the existing code and I presume also the plugin if you are only using it to achieve authorship markup. The reason is that with two lots of conflicting code on your site the rich snippets testing tool will say that your code is in error and therefore the markup won’t have the desired effect.
You can take out the existing stuff manually, or if you want to, you can do a SQL database query to remove the Google+ links all in one go.
Once that is done you could use our plugin which would mean that once it is set up properly for your site, there would be no manual intervention needed. If you do use our plugin, we recommend using the footnote method as it is consistent with what you currently have.
Liz
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Thank you Liz – I’ll unwind it and install yours and let you know how it goes.
Ram
Hi Ram – If you have any problems please ask me and I’ll help out. Liz
Hi
I have downloaded and installed the plugin and it looks perfect for what I trying to do. However, I am really confused. I must have missed the initial set up training.
Don’t now how to link the author page or does this plugin create one automatically?
I have a semilogic theme / install
Hi Phill,
The plugin will provide to types of link automatically:
If your theme already does the rel=”author” link then you can choose the “byline” method. If your theme does not provide rel=”author” already then choose one of the other options. See http://www.authorsure.com/77/which-method-should-i-choose-to-verify-authorship
You would need to provide me your URL so I could see what links are in place on your site.
Regards
Russell
Hi There,
Great plugin!
Have you run into any theme compatibility problems?
I am currently using Thesis and on my author page, the author content placed by authorsure is all the way at the top left.
Like this: http://www.wealthyaffiliategold.com/author/admin
Any idea?
Thanks!
Hi David,
We have AuthorSure running fine on Thesis on http://www.slickrflickr.com
The issue you are running into is because your theme/custom code/some plugin is running a WordPress “loop” in the head section of your page.
AuthorSure injects the content at the “loop_start” hook which would normally be just before the list of posts written by the author. However, on this page there is an earlier “loop_start” before the one that list the posts by that author.
You need to track down what is running the first loop and if it is indeed necessary to run it on this page, and if so, can the loop be run at the end of page rather than in the head section. The “loop” does not seem to produce any output so it is hard to tell what it is doing.
Regards
Russell
So do I have an author page automatically – or can I use the one that I have set up on the site at the Meet Jeanette link? http://jeanettecates.com/jeanette/
Currently it’s not liking properly so obviously something is not correct. In the plugin set up I choose the Meet Jeanette page as rel=author page, menu option.
Thanks for your help – and thanks for an excellent plugin (as soon as I get it to work!)
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Hi,
The menu link does not have the rel=”author” applied. You need to go Appearance | Menu and set the Link Relationship for the menu item “http://jeanettecates.com/jeanette/” to be author as described at http://www.authorsure.com/49/setting-up-authorsure-for-single-author-blogs.
However, if your WordPress theme has its own menu system (not the WordPress menu system) then then page Appearance | Menu will not have any menu defined. If this is the case you would need to look at your WordPress theme settings and see if you can influence the menu link to add rel=”author”, however it is down to the particulars your WordPress theme, FlexxCanvas-4.0.5, as to whether or not this is possible.
If it is not possible then I would suggest you use the “byline” method as you WordPress theme already puts rel=”author” links in the post byline. In this case your author page will be http://jeanettecates.com/author/Jeanette/ and AuthorSure can put a short or extended bio at the top of this page as well as the link to your GooglePlus profile. Just update “Your Profile” with your Google+ Profile URL, any other contact information you wish to include, and the bio information.
Then back on Google+ edit your profile and add http://jeanettecates.com/author/Jeanette/ to the “contributor to” section
Hi Russell,
This plugin looks awesome. I’m finally getting around to implementing authorship on our blog and this plugin looks like a clear choice.
I’ve installed it, but I’m having trouble with the author page. If I understand this correctly the author page is generated automatically by WP. However, I have implemented the footer option on the plugin and the author link is showing up (in a not ideal place, but that’s another less pressing issue asked below). When you mouse over the link the following url show: trans-americas.com/blog/author/eric which is not a page I’ve created. When the link is clicked however, it bounces me back to my blog home: trans-americas.com/blog/.
Do I need to do something else to implement the author page? My theme is twenty-eleven v1 that I have modified the css to fit into the look & feel of our overall site. btw – there are two authors for the site so I didn’t want to hard code this.
As for the footnote author link, it appears between some social media icons as you can see on our posts. This isn’t the biggest deal in the world since I didn’t want this to be to prominent as we are a duo working together as the Trans-Americas Journey, not really as individuals, until now to take advantage of google authorship. Is there an (easy) way to move where this link appears?
Thanks in advance for your help
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Sorry I left this question here, I just noticed the reauest under “get help” to leave your question on G+…doing that now
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Hi, I posted a screenshot at https://plus.google.com/b/107461397560449763081/107461397560449763081 which shows you have two separate plugins adding social media icons – maybe just remove one of them – or try DiggDigg, SexyBookmarks or Sociable instead. I also answered your responded to your comment on Google+ – think the issue is you have a rogue plugin that is stealing your author pages or maybe a badly configured .htaccess. Some SEO plugins will try and kill your author pages so that is a good place to start looking.
Your plugin seems to work ok, except for one problem: Instead of the Twitter icon, I get: “@twitter username (no @ or link)” on the Author page. My guess is that might be happening because I’m using the CommentLuv Premium plugin whose comment form gives readers the option of entering their Twitter username.
FYI, I’m using Thesis 1.8.4.
Hi Dick, What is the URL of the author page in question? The Twitter URL you enter should look a bit like this: http://twitter.com/#!/russelljamieson
I am getting the error message below from the Rich Snippets Testing Tool and can’t figure out what the problem is.
publisher
linked Google+ page = https://plus.google.com/106603164143019072412
Verified: Publisher markup is verified for this page. Learn more.
author
linked author profile = http://www.top10googleresults.com/author/admin/
Error: Author profile page does not have an authorship link to a Google Profile
I forgot to mention that I am using the StudioPress Agency theme which they say puts the following in the byline:
Brian Gardner
That is fine, we recommend using the byline method (the default) for Genesis themes which already put the correct rel=author links on posts and pages.
Hi Phil, The error is exactly as described – there is no Google+ Profile URL on the author page. You need to go into “Your Profile” and enter the URL of your Google+ Profile. (assuming you are logged in as admin)
Can you add a option to the next version to set the author url to the google+ link. I was using gplus activator before and it did good for some things and not for the home page. I verified using a different setup than onsite author page rel=author, publisher, and me and that. Your plug-in would not work right on the home page, and neither would gplus for some reason. It did work right when I had both activated together. I finally used your plug-in and hard coded the author link in your code with my google profile and everything is great according to their verification tool.
It now links my author name to goolge+ and publisher to google+ instead of your automatic sitename/author/blah blah
Hi Mark,
You can just enter the URL on the “Your Profile” page. There is no need to hard code the Google+ Profile URL – If you later update the plugin you will lose your hard coded changes so I recommend you revert to the published version. You can specify your Google+ Profile URL on the “Your Profile” page for yourself and the “Edit User” page for other users if required.
AuthorSure works fine for the home page – see http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.authorsure.com. Here I am using the Author Box method to place an author box at the foot of the home page. To do this, I set the Category and Tag Archives Settings to “bottom” of the page, and in the Author Box setting I made sure the “Hide on Front Page” setting was NOT checked. This approach works for the “footnote” method too.
If you have a single author blog then you can use an “about me” page rather the author page – this works fine without the need to tweak code – see http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.russelljamieson.com. For instructions on setting up a single author blog see http://www.authorsure.com/49/setting-up-authorsure-for-single-author-blogs
Only if you are using the ‘byline’ method which means relying on your WordPress theme and not AuthorSure to supply the rel=author links, AND your theme does NOT put a rel=author link on the home page then you might want to edit your theme to add a link to your default WordPress author page: sitename/author/user. You could achieve this by editing the home.php file. Alternatively you could put a link to your author page in a text widget and then use the Widget Logic plugin to ensure this widget only appears on the home page by setting the condition as: is_front_page()
I think I have it set up correctly, when I check it with the google rich snippet tool, my image shows, but only after I verify my google + url. My question is, do I need to use this rich snippet tool for every post I make to verify my autorship? Or does it do this automatically?
Here’s my author page: http://getpaidwithfitness.net/author/admin/ and a random post I choose: http://getpaidwithfitness.net/successful-beachbody-coach/
Did I set this up correctly?
Hi Marcus,
That’s a great question!. No, you do not have to check for every post.
I recommend running the Google Rich Snippets Test Tool and check you have a verified authorship on each type of page you have on your site:
Thanks for the reply Russell, I have another question, it seems like I may be doing something wrong here. How come when I use the rich snippet tool, I have to verify my google + profile every time? This doesn’t happen if I run the url of someone else’s site through the tool. My image shows, but only when I verify my g+ url.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
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Please can you give an example. Normally your g+ profile needs to be verified just once.
Weird…now I am getting this rich snippet tool error: “http://getpaidwithfitness.net/author/admin/
Error: Author profile page does not have an authorship link to a Google Profile”
I wasn’t getting that error a few days ago, and from what I can see I do have and authorship link to my google profile.
???
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Please ensure you have entered your Google+ Profile URL under “Edit User” for the admin user
Yes, I’ve done this, here is a screenshot from my user profile: http://i520.photobucket.com/albums/w321/mox222/2012-06-06_0748.png
And the g+ url I’m using is; https://plus.google.com/111486153715216327370
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HI Marcus,
That looks correct. So this leaves us with the conclusion that your WordPress theme, flexibility3, is doing something non-standard with the author page (there is likely an author.php file in the the theme folder).
The next thing to try is various Advanced Author Page settings – try increasing the ‘hook_instance’ and refreshing the author page – if it works you will see a Google+ icons. When testing you should disable W3 Total Cache in order to see the changes.
Regards
Russell
There is already a google+ icon showing on my author page without me changing anything: http://getpaidwithfitness.net/author/admin/
What hook instance should I raise it to? I raised it to 2, and nothing seemed to changed, so then I changed it back to 1.
Frustrating…. :/
Thanks for all of your help so far, I really appreciate it.
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