google-profile-search

John Mueller, Google engineer, just announced that they were revamping the way the search results look on Google and that photos commonly associated with authorship will no longer be showing up in the search results. This can potentially be a defensive move towards a monopoly issue (where Google is accused of unfairly using their monopoly to force people to use Google+) or it can be that they have deemed that it will not scale with the future of the web.

Internet entrepreneur David Jenyns reaction summer it up quite nicely: “EPIC”

The official quote, from John Mueller: “As a part of this, we’re simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results, removing the profile photo and circle count.” https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/PDkPdPtjL6j

Perhaps it’s just that… they felt it wasn’t going in the direction they wanted it to. We might never know but at least it will make life easier for us because we won’t have to be concerned with our authorship picture.

However, as SEO Expert E-Rock points out: “I’m sure it will still benefit to have the Authorship on the Site ANYWAY….. so will still have to set it up regardless…. just no PHOTOs to help CTR.”

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