Google Rel=Agent Replaces Authorship: Maybe Google Testing SEOs

Some savvy webmasters were inspecting the HTML markup behind the last Google Webmaster Blog post and noticed the markup used on the posted by John Mueller hyperlink had a bit of extra code for rel=agent. Here is a screen shot of the code:

Paul Shaprio asked about it on Twitter after noticing it, saying "Weird, probably insignificant observation... JohnMu is tagged with ?rel=agent." Indeed.

Often Googlers, especially on the webmaster blog, add markup to see if we are looking. It is Google humor, that is how Googlers have fun.

John replied:

Yea right, a typo. :)

As you know, Google has destroyed authorship so it would have said rel=author but John changed it to rel=agent to mess with us.

Love this stuff.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: Now John changed it to google.com/+johnmueller?rel=AUTHOR