Yes it would defiantly help with CTR, but to me it is just the kind of crap Google are trying to convince people to do instead of building links, because at the end of the day no matter what Google like to pretend, links still rank sites and always will. The same with Matt Cutts trying to pretend social signals are good, they are not good they are no follow, and in all my testing with social signal, on very easy to rank keywords, they have done absolutely nothing. Google likes people to believe that crap things work which do not work to try and pull people away from spamming. Spamming works better than ever now, due to all the hit sites. It is very easy to spam a website straight to the top with complete shit for highly competitive words, and the proof is all over the front page of Google.
I think you've entirely missed the point that I outline in this method, the very key point that seperates this method from just being "Hey look I've set up Google Authorship". You are in fact building links, related authority links of value, and you are building them to your google profile. I never said this is an over night page 1 ranking method, what I said is this establishes solid authority.
Your claim that it is easier now than ever to spam to the front page is only
partially right. Let's take the following example:
Highly searched keyword, for a popular show, in the SERP results there really isn't that much competition, apart from Wikipedia and a fan based Wikia the rest of the sites are mostly small time one of sites which a handful of backlinks. But there interesting thing is the top 3:
Let's take a closer look at the third link the "bleachepisodeguide.net" one:
As you can see this site has no content except for some titles and a picture of Taylor Swift (personally I think it's a great choice, she may be a psycho but she's a babe). The point here is that even on large scale keywords you
CAN rank total crap, but the reason this ranks is because of it's backlinks. Open it up in ahrefs or another backlink analyzer, all of the backlinks are high PR in-content backlinks that pack a punch.
The reason I illustrate that you are partially correct is to outline how crucial the idea of "content oriented backlinking" is right now. There is nothing more powerful and when you drive your Google Authorship identity with content oriented backlinking you simply come out on top. I have no doubt that this rubbish site could beat the Wikipedia entry for first place if it were to have a set up and backlinked Google Authorship.
Think about it this way, Google's primary objective is to deliver quality content to it's end users without having an algorithm that can be manipulated. Sites like the Wall Street Journal are known content publishers, with a well established presence. Joe Smith's financial fun day blog is a brand new blog with very short entries. Both sites go out for a keyword and backlinks tell you that Joe Smith should be in first.
Needless to say this opens up a huge can of worms, where Google becomes at the scrutiny of their own algorithm in a fight for quality. Obviously it is to Google's benefit to establish Joe Smith's authority so that in the future they CAN give him the benefit of the doubt.
By increasing your CTR, and showing extra links of yours (
http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-hidden-benefit-of-authorship-134526) Google makes it worth while for you to set up your Authorship and go from there, but much like setting up your sites Meta-Keywords that is only half the battle. You have to take the time to backlink and grow the percieved authority of the account. It is not in the simple set up that you win, but rather in taking the next step that far to many people miss.
- I think I may put together a more detailed case study of this and post it here if people are interested?
