These aren't what you think

Notice anything odd about these two web results? They've got Google's new author profile pictures in, right?

How you normally make those photos appear

Well, no. Normal websites have to go through a slightly complicated process to get photos of the author of a page showing up in Google's web results (the old process, the new process). This basically involves cross linking your Google profile and either the page in question or to an "author page" that the page in question also links to.

There's a "by Malcolm Coles" link next to the photo

But when you do that, Google's results show not just a photo - but also a link to your Google profile.

And this link to the Google profile is missing from the screenshot above (but you can see it in the picture here).

So what's going on?

It turns out that those two web results from the Guardian aren't showing photos because of Google's normal process for making them appear.

There are no links from the author profiles on the Guardian to the journalist's Google profiles. And their Google profiles don't link to their author pages. (Here is Charles Arthur's author page on the Guardian and his Google profile. Here is Jemima Kiss's author page on the Guardian and her Google profile.)

However, both those author pages link to the journalist's twitter accounts - as do their Google profiles. And it appears that Google has decided that on the basis of this, it can presume that the photo on their Twitter profile picture is a picture of the article's author - and is showing the photo.

I think we can assume that this isn't going to work for most sites ... Thanks to @yesiamben, @ysekand, @danbarker and @yoast for helping work all this out yesterday.

In the past, they used to be shoved over on the right hand side (EG see the screenshot here). Now they are integrated into the search results - with a bit prominent link to my google+ profile. See this screenshot of a site: search for this site (I see similar on other sites, too).

Author pictures integrated

Anyone else see this? You can add author pictures by following these instructions (which were recently simplified).

So here's a screenshot I just did and under that is one I did just before I went on holiday (so about 4 weeks ago - obviously the results are different). Both are for [Kelly Brook Myleene Klass] (don't ask).

After ...

Before ...

The headlines are the same size - but the publication is now in a smaller font, as is the info about how old the story is (and the "all XX news articles" copy).

Change? Experiment? Some sort of font/browser cock up by me?

Bounce rate by source

Bounce rate by country

Bounce rate year on year change

Hope they help.

New icons

The mobile version of Google seems to have a fancy new layout. It's all go today what with Google Plus and web fonts v2 and a funny black bar across the top ... Anyway, here's what it looks like.

Initial view

Discrete Google / images / Places / News / more links across the top

Initial view

Icons then get bigger if you scroll

With some nice icons

Icons get bigger

You can expand to see search icons ...

And choose which sort of search to run

Search icons

... or apps

Or switch to Google apps

List of apps

Have you seen this?

Google says that: "One caveat to watch out for: while it’s OK to use the new schema.org markup or continue to use existing microformats or RDFa markup, you should avoid mixing the formats together on the same web page, as this can confuse our parsers."

Over here though, the Open Graph Protocol says: "We've based the initial version of the protocol on RDFa".

So that sounds like you can't.

But schema.org says: "Even if you mark up your content using the Facebook Open Graph protocol, schema.org provides a mechanism for providing more detail about particular entities on the page." That sounds a bit like you can use them together?

Yet over here it is written: "Which are you going to choose? Facebook’s Like button markup, or Google/Microsoft/Yahoo’s Microdata markup – you are being put into the position of choosing one of those exclusively."

So what's the answer?

Here's one example.

No results, just refinements when I search for Kentish Town

Here's another.

No results, just refinements when I search for Hyde Park

Or maybe it's a bug!

The plural of +1 is +1s and not +1's

Observe that screenshot. It talks about a +1. And Google talks about "the +1 button". Yet its headline is "See +1's" and the example from the Google results is that someone "+1'd this".

No apostrophe is needed in these last two examples. The plural of +1 is +1s. And if I did a +1 then I +1ed. Or possibly as one ends in an e already, maybe I +1d.

At least the on-site +1 answers the question of just what it's for.

To infinite URLs - and beyond

Using rel = canonical properly

You use the rel=canonical command to tell Google that a given URL is actually a version of another URL - and that the search engine should treat the second version as if it was that main URL.

It's useful if you have multiple copies of a page in different directories, have lots of versions of the same page due to EG WordPress making 2 versions of every page, or allow anyone to rewrite your URLs so it looks like your insulting Pippa Middleton's sister.

Make a mistake with rel=canonical, however, and it can wipe your website off the face of the internet.

Using rel = canonical to make infinite URLs

The Express site's CMS is creating a duplicate version of every single page via the rel=canonical tag. And then a 3rd version, and then a 4th ... and it's never stopping until it gets to infinity.

Take a sample page like this one: http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-system

If you look at the HTML code, you can find:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-systemAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO">

The CMS has miscoded the canonical URL to include the first bit of the URL relating to the individual page (the AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO bit) twice.

If you visit that supposedly canonical URL, you see this, with the page-specific bit in there three times.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-systemAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO">

Go to that URL, and you find it there 4 times. Etc.

I got bored at http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-systemAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO

but this will never stop. Each time you visit the canonical URL, a new canonical URL is created.

All these URLs are working pages because the Express only looks at the number in the URL to decide what content to show. So http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-system is the same as http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/vote-YES is the same as http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/who-exactly-specced-this-CMS.

Dozens of URls for each Express story

Sometimes these duplicate canonical URLs aren't in Google's index (I guess as each one is cancelled out by the next one). Although you can find them. This search, for instance, has this URL showing up: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/242092/DEBATE-Is-Britain-a-soft-touch-for-benefit-spongers-DEBATE-Is-Britain-a-soft-touch-for-benefit-spongers-DEBATE-Is-Britain-a-soft-touch-for-benefit-spongers-DEBATE-Is-Britain-a-soft-touch-for-benefit-spongers-DEBATE-Is-Britain-a-soft-touch-for-benefit-spongers-DEBATE-Is-Britain-a-soft-touch-for-benefit-spongers-

Even worse, the first URL that appears for that search is the printable URL of the page with no adverts on!

One paragraph, 55 results ...

And as that search, with 55 results, reveals, the Express has a massive problem with duplicate content.

The Express then makes the problem even worse ...

This is a problem it makes worse via its use of Tynt to add URLs when you copy and paste content. So if you copy and paste the first sentence from this URL: http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-system, what you end up with is this:

"BY the time you read this you will have probably already voted No to AV in today’s referendum.

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-systemAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO#ixzz1LW2s00ge".

The Express uses Tynt to add the read more bit and the URL to what you've copied.

But, yes, the code they are adding contains the wrong URL with two versions of the page slug. Follow that link and copy a sentence and you end up with this:

"BY the time you read this you will have probably already voted No to AV in today’s referendum.

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/244786/AV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO-to-the-new-voting-systemAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NOAV-referendum-Why-we-must-vote-NO#ixzz1LW31La3e"

Yup, another new URL created by the system that's designed to channel links to the main story.

You can see this in action on this page on the Daily Mail where someone has copied the opening para from some other bat shit story, and the Tynt URL is to http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/244206/EU-wants-to-merge-uk-with-franceEU-wants-to-merge-uk-with-franceEU-wants-to-merge-uk-with-france#ixzz1LCIcD5jI.

This might explain why the Express can't rank in first place for a paragraph from its own story.

To sum up

The Express isn't appearing top of Google's results for searches using their own content and Google is serving up versions of its pages with no adverts on - all because Google can't work out which page is the correct one because the Express constantly points to yet another URL for every single page - even the made up ones.

My head hurts.

Image credit.