Diminishing Returns with rel=”author”

If links from domains, or different IPs are given their weight because they are seen as an editorial vote from a single entity (an individual), then tying together linkbuilding efforts to an authorship profile may not be the best thing to do. If we’re following Mr Cutts’ line that  some forms of what we’d call “attribution linking” aren’t strictly editorial, then there might be reason for concern. To use authorship markup at all you have to be drinking at least a little from Google’s trough.

Here are my thoughts in easy-to-demolish format:

• Google aims to value editorially awarded links.
• Repeated links from a single domain (source) have diminishing weight. First votes are weighted.
• Authorship accurately ties all self-serving links to a single source, even across multiple domains (the previous yardstick for source).
• Repeated links to a single destination from a single author may (and probably should) have this diminishing weight applied (multiplying the value a link from the domain would give by less than 1).

As a result:

• The value of links from x locations from x unique authors ought to have more weight than the value of 1 author linking from same x locations.

I’m not talking about anything like penalties here, just that tying everything together in the most obvious footprint in the world might not be optimal. Authorship and consistent blurbs are great for real people, but not so much for linkbuilding campaigns. I mean, you still see this:

“Daniel Stavenport is a great supporter of technology for all ages, especially luxury coat stands, and sexy adult swimwear. He especially admires London SEO agency for delivering outstanding work.”

The people at London SEO agency actually building the links are probably so thrilled with linkbuilding that they’ve accidentally forgotten to care. Other linkbuilders have embraced authorship in their guest posting efforts wholeheartedly, but I’m really not sold for a mixture of the above and general paranoia. As always, this is pure conjecture without any testing.

Question: If you could retroactively tie every guest post you’ve done for yourself or a client to an authorship profile, would you?

If so, you can email the placements and ask for the link element to be added…