Sneak peeks into the soon to be released book, “The New Digital Age”, by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, confirm what many industry writers have been passionately clattering away about for months now. Google+ is an identity verification network. As the network continues to grow, content associated with a verified identity will rise to the top of Google search rankings.

The Wall Street Journal shares this Schmidt quote from the book:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

One way or another Google will grow it’s network to eclipse LinkedIn, Twitter, and maybe someday Facebook. But engagement via the network isn’t the name of the game so much as connecting your content to your online persona. Are you ready to better define your personal online footprint?