Google Authorship no more

In an announcement made by John Mueller on August 29th, it became apparent that Google Authorship was being revoked.

Why is Google doing this, and what does this mean for content creators who got pretty good traffic because they had a decent Google Authorship rank?

Google started connecting authors with their content through Google Authorship from around June 2011. The objective was to provide higher mileage to good authors by giving them the opportunity of Authorship advantage. This would not only help great authors connect to their target audience, the audience would also benefit in terms of finding highly relevant content.

When Google introduced Authorship markup in 2011, its Webmaster Central blog explained the thinking behind connecting authors with their content in search results. Although Google later discontinued the Authorship feature, the initiative remains an interesting chapter in the evolution of search.

The last few years have been a struggle for a lot of webmasters not only because many of them could not make the Google Authorship work for them, but also because having the Authorship displayed on Google SERPs was like telling the world that your content is one of the best, so if you do not have Google authorship…well …..

Google Authorship has been the most sought after mark-up tool for almost everyone who is in the search business. For many webmasters having the authorship has worked very well, not only did they get a lot of visibility, their click-through rates increased as well.

Why did Google decide to revoke Authorship?

According to Google, Authorship wasn’t adding as much value as they would have wanted it to. On analyzing Authorship data Google came to the conclusion that Authorship was not meeting their objective and therefore had to go.

What next for webmasters?

Things continue as they are, it is just another change, it may not impact anything. Webmasters may continue to see their pages rank well despite the removal of Authorship. Before long we may see Google come up with something new. And Authorship will then just be something found in the archives and webmasters would be busy implementing the next new thing.

There is learning in all this, things around us will keep changing, in order to have a strategic advantage, what we need to ensure is that we continue to make improvements in terms of user experience, content, speed, accessibility….we need to keep testing and finding innovative ways of promoting our sites. At the end we need to ensure that our strategy brings us … increased traffic, visibility, and conversions.

Another useful thing to remember is to not depend upon just one source for traffic. Remember the old saying;” Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Use every possible way of reaching out to your potential customers, research, participate, and help. It will also help to keep updated with new technologies. We can’t control the changes that happen around us but what we can control is what is within our control. Let’s do that best, and that is all that is needed.

Ranjana Jha

The internet has been a great source of interest to me. I have been involved with website promotions and SEO since the late 90s. Those days SEO was not as well-known or wasn't really the top priority for most businesses. The whole SEO concept was still at its nascent stage. It is interesting how SEO has evolved over the past decade. My objective of setting up this website is to share my experiences and help your business attain a higher visibility on the internet.