Google +1's Confirmed To Have "No Direct" Impact On Rankings
In this week's blog, the Google +1's feature has come under serious evaluation. The head of Google's Web Spam team, Matt Cutts, sat down for an interview for the latest Google Hangout video. The interview was based around questions that viewers had been sending in. After speaking about his role with Google and how to determine which sites are authentic or not, Cutts was hit with a question about Google's social network.

After many rumours circulating around for quite some time about the effect +1's have on a search ranking, one user sent in a question about the exact effect the social network's +1 feature had on site rankings. Cutts' response detailed that there is 'not really a direct effect'. He then continued on to speak about the history of search engines and how Google may possibly find a use for that functionality in the future.

Cutts then powered through to talk about the new feature, 'Google Authorship'. He claimed that users are more likely to click on a link of a blog or site that has a picture of a credible author.

About Google Authorship

Matt Cutts discussed this new Google feature in the hangout video, so let's take a deeper look into it.

In order to use Authorship, you are required to have a Google+ Profile. Once a profile has been set up, users are prompted to navigate to plus.google.com/authorship, where they are asked to insert their gmail address and verify the account. Once the account has been verified, they can follow the prompts to link that Google+ account to their published content. After the user has linked content to their Google account, Google will display the head shot picture in any search results in which the specified content appears.

Users also have the ability to monitor the analytics for their use of the authorship feature. This can be accessed through google.com/webmasters under the 'Author Stats' section.