As you may have seen lately, the Google SERPs have been undergoing a lot of cosmetic changes, especially with the latest effort by Google to amalgamate all of its services under one entity called Google Plus. With this in mind, not just the SERPs have changed, but their e-mail service of Gmail, as well as many other Google-related services have been redesigned and reorganized; however, whenever the heart of Google (its SERPs) changes, it totally rearranges the outlook of the search/webmaster world, because finding content can be more of a science than most people think.

One of the most recent changes to Google that has shaken the search/webmaster world is the recently implemented Panda algorythm update, and how it has impacted article content on the web (especially at the “content farm” level). Duplicate and copied content has always been an issue for Google, and hopefully with this recent algorhythm update, it will help the way that content is perceived on the web. One way to help crack down on duplicate content on the web is by showing the content author, and that is exactly what Google has implemented in its SERPs.

For example, I performed a search of “Google canonical advice” on Google, and the SERPs (shown below) display that Matt Cutts (head of the Webspam Team at Google) is the author of the “SEO advice: url canonicalization” article:

Author information about the articles can be set up using Google Profiles. As time progresses, you will start to see more and more articles with authors associated with them, especially with the recent launch of Google Plus.

Is this a step in the right direction that Google is taking to beat the duplicate content issue within its SERPs? Be sure to let us know below within the comments section of this post.