Google Authorship is History

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   Writer Foxposted 9 years ago

   If you were ever worried about getting your picture to show with your webpages in search results, forget about it.  The Google Authorship feature is history.
   http://searchengineland.com/goodbye-goo … hip-201975
   
   Apparently, it never made any difference in click-through rates anyway.

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      lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah I read that last night, but what I didn't understand is the fact that it didn't make people click! Personally I did click more when there was authorship markup. Well, they did it for uniformity on mobile and desktop search - that's what they're telling us

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         Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I pity the people who are going to read outdated information about setting up Google authorship and can't figure out how to do it now. 
         
         Keeping up with Google is a full-time occupation!

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            lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I do it every morning and night lol. Just worked on adding schema markup last week never really bothered before.

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               Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               That's cool for rich snippets, but it doesn't really help for search rankings.

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                  lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Yup rich snippets is what I wanted. If it helped with rankings I'd have done it a long time ago hehehe. A few starts here n there do help increase click through Im sure.
                  
                  In my opinion author markup increased ctr but the overall bounce rate on Google (searches without clicks) would have remained the same. So as Google wasn't benefitting I'm guessing they scraped it. They're not bothered about individual webmasters.

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            Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Yes indeed! It requires full-time attention to keep up with Google. I had to update my tutorial hub on Google Authorship twice in the past two months... An update in July about the removal of the author's image, and an update again in August for newcomers from Squidoo about changing Authorship status to HubPages.
            
            Now I have to update it again, but Google Authorship is not completely gone. Authorship markup still shows in SERP's in some cases when search results relate to someone with whom one has in their Google+ circles. Google may remove that too someday, but it seems they are leaving it for now. 
            
            One reason why Google is dropping Authorship, besides the fact that it didn't seem to change click through rates, is that many people implemented the tags between profiles incorrectly. I know this first hand since some people who read my hub didn't follow the instructions properly.
            
            The problem I saw was that some people never tested their own work to see if they did it right. So they never knew they still didn't have Authorship status. 
            
            It's common to makes mistakes, especially with complex HTML programming for non-programmers. But that's why it's so important to check one's work instead of assuming he or she did it right. I guess Google got frustrated with that.
            
            Even when Google tried to automate the process, their bots ended up attributing the wrong headshot image to the wrong person, such as the fiasco with Truman Capote being shown as the author of a New York Times article long after his death.
            
            In addition, many of us thought that Google Authorship would also help with the fight against plagiarism. But that didn't help at all either. I saw Google continued to index stolen copies of my hubs even though I had claimed authorship long before the thefts occurred.
            
            As long as it's a failure, they may as well let Google Authorship be history.

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               Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Great info, Glenn.  You're the man!

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               brakel2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Lately, two hubs that I shared ended up on Google with author photo and a link back to Google+. I don't know if it was a personal deal, but it was on my computer and both my husband.'s and my iPhone. They are still there on page 1 Google by keyword. Any others see anything similar?  Sad about authorship.

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                  Glenn Stokposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  You must have been logged into your Google account. Try logging out and you won't see your image. I noticed some images still show up for SERPs that result in listings of authors who we have in our circles, as well as our own.

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      makingamarkposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      The photos are long gone!  Most went at the end of last year and the rest went in June.
      
      However, the premise for getting rid of it is, I believe, faulty. The low take-up was because the whole process of doing so was difficult to follow.
      
      If you get low adoption rates for anything it's always best to start by exploring an assumption that there is a problem with communication rather than product.  Nobody will make a decision about a product if they can't work out how to adopt it!!!
      
      I saw nothing that persuaded me that Google were making it easier for people to adopt Google authorship.

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      Dale Hydeposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      A never ending world of Google, internet and changes.  It is a full time job to try to keep up and keep tweaking.  I no longer have the time nor the rewards in return for time spent.  I write, but less and less.  The internet is oversaturated, lol.  I put in a search and get millions of returns in less that a second.... I have tried the most outlandish things and they all return huge numbers.  Not much left to write about on the internet.
      
      Hmm...maybe a post about the birth of the internet and the demise of the internet?

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      drpennypincherposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I changed my profile picture from a picture of a penny being pinched to a picture of my face so it would work for Google Authorship, which required a face picture.  It was fun while it lasted...  I am surprised that the click-through rate wasn't better for the search results with author pictures.

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   Millionaire Tipsposted 9 years ago

   Everything keeps changing.  Google authorship was something I thought I had finally figured out and was nice because it was a set it and forget it kind of thing,  But now I guess it is just a forget it kind of thing.

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      Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      

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   jansharesposted 9 years ago

   Cool, I never got mine up anyway. Thanks for the info, Writer Fox.

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   Greekgeekposted 9 years ago

   Ugh. Another tutorial to update.
   
   This is why I don't write as many tutorials as I used to.
   
   Lobobrandon: I'm highly suspicious of doing schema markup because it seems to me Google just finds it a convenient way to schlorp up the factual information from various sites and add it to its knowledge graph. I's inevitable, at this point, to have Google serving up content it's gleaned from the rest of the web instead of sending its users to our content, but I see no point in wasting my time making it easier for them.
   
   I'm probably being overly cynical on that front.
   
   The authorship info was a piece of cheese to get us all to sign up for Google Plus, wasn't it? But any sort of thing we have to do manually to be plugged into search engines is a bad metric, because the majority of people aren't going to bother to implement it, or won't know how, or know they should.
   
   I won't bother taking down authorship code, since it may continue to be used by various apps and tools, and it may get picked up by future tools. But I'm relieved Google is ditching it. It wasn't fair to say, "the search engine used by most of the world will only display your authorship for your content if you register for Google plus and let Google curate your official online identity according to the rules we set down for what constitutes your valid online identity."

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      lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I was talking to my friend about the very same thing! It was more of a scam to sign up for the new social network on the block. They just needed a few to kick start it.
      
      Regarding the schema markup, well I don't mind adding it if it's going to increase CTR as there are already so many other sites that use it and they're bigger brands (Amazon, Walmart, Homedepot, etc). I'm sure Google is gonna add to it's knowledge graph from them rather than a review site.
      
      Same here, I'm not gonna get rid of the code snippets from any of my sites/pages as It's gonna be used somewhere or another. Plus, it's not causing any hassles and would just be another task to add to the already overwhelming "to do" list.
      
      EDIT: Just wanted to say that you're not being cynical about it. It's totally true and one of the major reasons it's being promoted (Even though they may debate about user benefits). It's a business looking for profit after all.

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   Mark Ewbieposted 9 years ago

   Good riddance to it.  Google want to own the internet, authorship and the written word.  They are fascist librarians who want to take over the world.
   
   Google.  Get stuffed.

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      ChristinSposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      hahaha - short, sweet to the point and my sentiments exactly.  Over Google and it's constant changes.  I gave up trying to appease them.

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      lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I'm glad I voted for you as the funniest hubber

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         Mark Ewbieposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Lol - well now you made my traffic go mad. At least three in a half an hour.  Madness.

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            lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I'm glad I helped make you a fortune (bow)
            
            Happy to help hehe

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      CuAllaidhposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Fascist Librarians sounds like a great name for a band

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   electronicianposted 9 years ago

   I never tried to use Google authorship because it just felt like too much effort for something which was ultimately to benefit Google rather than me. Also I never felt like people searching Google really care much about an article's author - I don't and I'm a writer myself.
   
   I won't miss it.

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   Suzanne Dayposted 9 years ago

   I'm disappointed with Google's position because I thought they would use authorship in many ways, like to attribute original copy to original authors etc in the future. Looks like I will be revamping a tutorial of mine too!
   
   Agree with posters here that if it isn't easy to adopt for webmasters, then they're probably not going to bother anyway. Google's a bit silly if they don't realise that and out of many programs on the web, Google's stuff has the most annoying and ridiculously hard processes to get right. Eg., try changing a business name on Google Places. Things like that have always been a nightmare, involving countless hours of research, phone calls to Google, lack of communication from Google and lack of action from whoever has to make the changes.

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   Chinaimportposted 9 years ago

   Google stopped showing picture of an author sometime last year because it took lots of display space when people searched using their mobile devices.  Now authorship is dead.  A good idea which had potential to curb web spam never really took off.  It was not easy enough for non technical writers to adopt and implement authorship, this, probably, was the main reason it failed to make an impact.
   
   I would continue to use authorship markup because it does not hurt to let Google know the identity of the content writer although it is not a ranking factor anymore. Thanks for sharing this news.

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      misterhollywoodposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yep - this is exactly why they removed the pictures of authors. They do however show the number of people within an author's circle on the SERPS. There is some debate about how this is beneficial to SEO. My own sense is that Google did this as a way of getting people to join Google+.
      
      As an aside. Google+ is still a good way to increase the number of site visitors to your page. My own experience has been that G+ is a lot more interactive than other forms of social media, like Twitter. Just seems like G+ is more topic driven where FB tends to be a popularity contest.

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   incomeguruposted 9 years ago

   Concerning stolen contents, Google still have a way of detecting the rightful owner. But they will never disclose that to the general public.

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    lobobrandonposted 9 years ago

    Most of us were right in that we believed Author Rank still exists even though the markup isn't going to show up on search. Check out this post: http://searchengineland.com/google-auth … ank-202254

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    Mark Ewbieposted 9 years ago

    Surely most normal people haven't even heard of Google Ass Rank or SEO games?
    
    I put it to the panel that there are way more high quality authors who just write stuff than there are tricksters and UGC players - and that the majority of them will not give a stuff about jumping through hoops for the Google college kids.
    
    So if Google wants to serve up 'quality' content - not that they could recognise it if it bit them on the ass - they will need something better than a bizarre bit of incoherent claptrap called rel=author.

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       lobobrandonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       That's true Mark, but it depends on the niche in the end. This is going to work best in the Internet Marketing and Blogging Niche as it's these folk that know about it. The rest of the bloggers would probably have author ship (it's a markup just like normal html). If they have this, they're automatically putting themselves in the game.
       
       Author Rank is something I don't bother about though, due to the variety of niches I write in on various sites.

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    makingamarkposted 9 years ago

    A basic principle of Google is what you see is not necessarily what other people see.
    
    Looking to see how you are represented from a strange computer in a different place is always an educational experience

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