Authorship and Author Ranking is moving at such a fast pace. We are seeing different results and impacts on a weekly basis.
Although this has not been fully implemented by Google, the question of who owns the Authorship attached to content when you leave that employment will become relevant in the future.
This also assumes that the content published is Great content.
Great Content without Authorship attached = Mediocre Content
Great Content with Authorship attached = Spectacular Content
Who Owns the Authorship attached to Content
This question and my reasoning is based upon, what we assume is Going to happen with Authorship.
There will be multiple scenarios where a person within a business (as an employee) where they will publish content on the companies Blog, Website.
Lets take the most obvious : The Marketing Manager, this could be within any type of industry. The marketing manager publishes content online to do with different aspects of the business, niche sectors, industry updates, etc.
He / She now has the opportunity to add their Authorship to this content. Over the next 12 months their content starts to rank very well in the search results, traffic to the site increases and awarness of the company increases online.
So what happens when that person decides to move to another company ?
Most employment contracts do state that any work, ideas, content created within that employment belongs to the business, But what about the Authorship ?
A company can not own that Authorship, as the Authorship is a personal account on Google+. Where the employee goes so does that Authorship.
If the employee removed their Authorship attached to all the content then that content will drop in the rankings. What was Spectacular content now becomes mediocre content because there is no Authorship and that authors Author Rank pushing the content.
Possibilities for Employers
We have established that Employers cannot own that Authorship.
Employers can add the replacement employees Authorship to the content. However does the new Authorship have the same Author Rank as the previous one ?.
Employers can offer a settlement to keep the Authorship in place. Until the new Authorship has built up the same Author Rank and no longer needs the previous Authorship attached to the content.
With new employments contracts employers could have a staying period for the Authorship to remain on the content.
Possibilities for Employees
Authorship will be a very powerful bargaining tool. By using your Authorship attached to content you can increase the businesses online presence and visibility.
Future employers will be able to identify individuals by their Authorship attached to content online.
Recap on Author Rank Factors
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