This factor counts the links on a page whose rel attribute contains the text author. It is a raw count of author-relationship links found in the body markup — it does not verify who the author is or confirm any authority.
| Factor ID | RG-LNK-016 |
|---|---|
| Family | Links |
| Measurement | Link count |
| Measured zone | Anchor rel attributes |
What it measures
RankGear counts the parsed links on the page whose rel attribute contains the text author. It is a simple tally of how many anchors on the page declare an author relationship through their rel value.
How RankGear measures it
RankGear parses the anchors from the script-free body of the page, lowercases each rel value, and counts every link whose raw rel value contains the substring author. The match is on the raw string, so any rel value that includes those characters is counted, and each matching link occurrence adds to the total.
What RankGear looks for
<a href="/about/jane-doe/" rel="author">Jane Doe</a>How to optimize it
Treat this as an observation of your markup, not a target to inflate. Use rel="author" only where it accurately communicates an author relationship and remains appropriate for your site’s markup conventions. Because the check is a substring match on the raw rel value, it reflects what your templates already emit rather than a score to chase — a higher count is not inherently better.
Important considerations
- The test is substring-based, not token-exact — any
relvalue containing the charactersauthoris counted. - Each matching link occurrence counts, so repeated author links add to the total.
- The value does not verify author identity or authority; it only tallies the relationship declaration.
- Do not add obsolete or unnecessary relationships to chase competitors.
- This is a measured signal that relates to patterns within a result set, not a cause of ranking — correlation is not causation, and the count alone guarantees nothing.
Related factors
Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.