The author’s face that could be displayed alongside the content that they had written on a website linked to their Google+ accounts, will no more be possible. Since June 2014, Google has done away with the option of showing the authorship in the search results. So, it will no more be possible to display the profile picture of the author in the search results that would allow you to know who wrote what.
According to John Mueller of Google, while briefing about the latest updates on SEO, the idea of removing the authorship from the search results stems from the fact that the information was not as much useful as they had hoped it to be when they had launched it three years ago. Rather, displaying the authorship could be a cause of distraction from the search results. Hence, the decision had to be taken to withdraw it.
Updates and changes are made with the objective of improving users’ experience. In this case, no such improvement was noticed during the tests that had been conducted to ascertain its effectiveness. Removal of the authorship has neither reduced traffic to sites nor has it resulted in increased clicks on advertisements.
Google+ posts from friends and pages can now be seen by the users both on the right hand side and the main results only if they are relevant to the query. The social features are not impacted by the withdrawal of authorship.
The other reasons for removal of authorship that have been unearthed by some SEO & SMO News & Articles are:
According to John Mueller of Google, while briefing about the latest updates on SEO, the idea of removing the authorship from the search results stems from the fact that the information was not as much useful as they had hoped it to be when they had launched it three years ago. Rather, displaying the authorship could be a cause of distraction from the search results. Hence, the decision had to be taken to withdraw it.
Updates and changes are made with the objective of improving users’ experience. In this case, no such improvement was noticed during the tests that had been conducted to ascertain its effectiveness. Removal of the authorship has neither reduced traffic to sites nor has it resulted in increased clicks on advertisements.
Google+ posts from friends and pages can now be seen by the users both on the right hand side and the main results only if they are relevant to the query. The social features are not impacted by the withdrawal of authorship.
The other reasons for removal of authorship that have been unearthed by some SEO & SMO News & Articles are:
- It was not being used by many people and even when it was used, the set up process almost always ridden with error like there was no linking back to the to the publishing site on their profiles of Google+.
- Google may have wanted to integrate the desktop and mobile experiences that do not permit as much space that is required to display authorship snippets.
