Finally, source attribution from Google!

Image by caribb via FlickrI like newspaper SEO. I’ve done a lot of it and it manages to be (at the same time) one of the most competitive SEO arts and one of the least well known.

I've wanted a source attribution solution for newspaper companies for multiple newspaper sites (ie; most newspaper companies) for years. I’ve twice managed to talk to Google engineers about this (as they wandered around a conference hall without enough bodyguards in place to intercept the in-coming SEOr on a request mission) and each time I was given the same reason why there was no attribution meta tag.

Google didn't think enough people would use it.

Each time the engineer pointed to other similar solutions (some of Yahoo’s initiatives, etc) and pointed out that the data suggested the feature would be ignored. Surprisingly my counter argument of “Yeah, but that’s Yahoo... it would be different if Google did it” didn’t seem to carry much weight.

Well. Now they’ve done it. You can now tell Google which newspaper is the lead source for a story you’re syndicating. As the paper vender might shout from the corner of the street; "Read all about it!"