Google Search Doesn’t Recognize Authors But Rather Entities

Gary Illyes from Google was asked if Google search tracks or recognizes authors. He said for Google Search it is more about entities, not authors. But for Google News and Google Scholar, Google does recognize authors.

The concept of authorship in Google search is long gone.

Here are the tweets covering what Gary said at PubCon:

Q- Does google track author credentials across various sites?
A- I think yes, but for Google News and scholar. In web search, not quite but we have entities @methode #pubcon

— Grace Kindred (@kindred_grace) October 10, 2019

…then you probably have an entity. “It’s not about the author, it’s about the entity”@methode @jenstar #Pubcon

— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) October 10, 2019

The concept of authors exists in Google Scholar, but for core web search we have entities. You heard about “authorship”, we don’t quite have that. It’s based on entities and not necessarily authors. @methode #Pubcon

— Patrick Stox (@patrickstox) October 10, 2019

Google search algorithm doesn’t have authorship, they have entities. #pubcon

— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones) October 10, 2019

Forum discussion at Twitter.