Authorship results dropped from search engine results page

In June Google made the decision to remove author photos from the search results, now it has made the decision to remove authorship altogether.

It was a system where web writers could add authorship mark-up to their bylines linking them to Google +. This was seen as a trust signal by Google, as it could determine who wrote the content, helping to give a seal of approval, particularly if written by an authoritative person in that sector.

Many webmasters implemented the change as the chances of gaining improved rankings were seen as a major benefit. The system was also widely known as the main reason many people joined Google +.

Before and after the change
The image below shows the changes to authorship within the search results. The changes mean the author name and photo have been removed from the search listings.

So why did Google drop authorship?
There have been many reasons discussed in the community as to why Google dropped authorship mark-up including:

• Cleaning up the search results page for mobile users
• Low adoption rate by webmasters
• Feedback that information isn’t useful to users and can distract from the results
• Profile pictures distract from PPC listings reducing Google’s revenue
• People creating fake personas to manipulate the system

Is author data still be used by Google as a ranking factor?
In 2007 Google patented ’Agent Rank’ which highlighted how author data can be used to influence ranking of websites. This included a number of factors, such as the social following of users and the Page Rank of the sites they write for. This patent could still be used by Google to influence search results.

MEC suspect that authorship data is still extremely useful to Google to allow it to learn about the people behind the content and from an algorithmic perspective. This could mean more personalised search results and a ranking factor based on author reputation as opposed to domain authority

Although the authorship ‘front-end’ has been removed from the search results, Google may still be using this relationship data, so building a real author profile is still important.

In addition to this, as the knowledge base continues to grow webmasters should take every opportunity to include all schema mark-ups including authorship. This rich data will provide Google with as many quality signals as possible.