Google started off asking everyone to add authorship to their web pages. It was a way to help progress the search results and help legitimize them. Google would rewards those who would add authorship to their pages. Yet, it didn't seem to do the trick as Google had wanted it to. Over the years, they had contemplated leaving the entire idea behind and moving towards something that was better, but they continued along. This was until after two years, when they realized it was best to shut down the entire idea and stop forcing people to do something that wasn't working out.
Since the proper adoption of the authorship markup was very low, Google repeatedly attempted to reinforce the importance of associating a name with online articles, going as far as to say that pages tied to Google + verified profiles might be considered more relevant than anonymous ones.
Sadly, the feature didn't work out as well as expected, and after playing with authorship for three years, Google finally decided to cull the feature. They have been gradually decreasing the prominence of authorship over the last few months, leading to speculation that the feature was due to be culled. In June they removed Google+ profile photos from the search results, and also stopped showing Google+ follower counts.
Google has launched, and killed, several projects over the last few years, so it should come as no surprise to webmasters that they have killed off authorship. However, the webmasters - and web developers - who have spent a lot of time building authorship related plugins and growing their Google+ profiles will be sad to see the system die. However, given that spammers were starting to try to manipulate the system, it makes sense to go back to other ways of managing authority in the search results.
It's not clear if the Google authorship is gone forever. It is possible that the concept of semantic search may reveal other ways of identifying authors of various online documents. So far, it is clear that methods that involve actions from humans, namely webmasters, are more or less doomed, since humans are subject to errors and misunderstandings more than we would like to admit. Automation can make this identification much more reliable, so it is possible to see some new approaches in this direction coming from Google engineers and technicians.
Tests conducted by Google found that the removal of authorship information did not appear to affect results like reducing traffic to websites, nor did there appear to be an increase in clicks on ads. Google has assured users that Google+ posts from friends, where they are relevant to search queries, will not be affected by the change.
Since the proper adoption of the authorship markup was very low, Google repeatedly attempted to reinforce the importance of associating a name with online articles, going as far as to say that pages tied to Google + verified profiles might be considered more relevant than anonymous ones.
Sadly, the feature didn't work out as well as expected, and after playing with authorship for three years, Google finally decided to cull the feature. They have been gradually decreasing the prominence of authorship over the last few months, leading to speculation that the feature was due to be culled. In June they removed Google+ profile photos from the search results, and also stopped showing Google+ follower counts.
Google has launched, and killed, several projects over the last few years, so it should come as no surprise to webmasters that they have killed off authorship. However, the webmasters - and web developers - who have spent a lot of time building authorship related plugins and growing their Google+ profiles will be sad to see the system die. However, given that spammers were starting to try to manipulate the system, it makes sense to go back to other ways of managing authority in the search results.
It's not clear if the Google authorship is gone forever. It is possible that the concept of semantic search may reveal other ways of identifying authors of various online documents. So far, it is clear that methods that involve actions from humans, namely webmasters, are more or less doomed, since humans are subject to errors and misunderstandings more than we would like to admit. Automation can make this identification much more reliable, so it is possible to see some new approaches in this direction coming from Google engineers and technicians.
Tests conducted by Google found that the removal of authorship information did not appear to affect results like reducing traffic to websites, nor did there appear to be an increase in clicks on ads. Google has assured users that Google+ posts from friends, where they are relevant to search queries, will not be affected by the change.
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