Author Photos Gone From Search Results

The face beside the result

For about three years, some articles in Google's results came with a small headshot of the person who wrote them, and their name under the title.

It took some setting up: a Google+ profile, a link from each article to it, and a link back to the site. Consultants sold it as a way to stand out.

In June last year the photographs went. In August the names went too, and Google said it had stopped using the authorship markup altogether.

More than a year later, plenty of business sites still carry the code, and plenty of owners still share every new article on Google+ because someone once said it helped with search.

What the change took away

• The photograph beside the result, removed in June last year.
• The follower count shown with it, removed at the same time.
• The byline naming the writer, removed in August.
• Any use of the markup, which Google no longer reads.
• Nothing about positions: pages kept their places in the results.

The last is the one owners misread. A face vanishing from beside your result looks like a demotion, and some businesses spent money hunting for a penalty that never existed.

The markup can stay where it is

Authorship was a link in the page's code pointing to a Google+ profile, often added by a plugin or a line in the template. Google no longer reads it, and leaving it there does no harm.

Removing it is tidy work for the next time someone edits the template. It is not worth a separate bill.

The visible parts matter more. A Find me on Google+ button under each article sends readers to a profile that may not have been touched since 2013.

Replace those buttons with a link to a page about the writer on your own site.

Google+ as a search habit

Posts on Google+ mostly reach people who already follow you there, in search as elsewhere. For most small businesses, that is a short list.

Google has also spent this year separating its other services from Google+: Photos became a product of its own in May, and YouTube stopped requiring a Google+ profile in July.

None of that makes Google+ worthless. It does make it a poor place to spend an hour a week for the sake of search.

The exception is your Google My Business listing, which still sits on a Google+ page. Keep its hours, photographs and categories current; that is the part local searchers actually see.

Who wrote it still matters

The photograph was never the point. It was a sign that a real person, with a name, stood behind the page.

Readers still look for that sign, especially on pages giving advice about their health, money or home. They want to know who is telling them, and why that person knows.

Google's own published advice on quality has long asked whether the author of an article really knows its subject. That question did not leave with the photographs.

What changed is where the answer has to appear: on the page, in plain sight, rather than in code and on another network.

A worked example

A dental hygiene practice run by two hygienists, in a ground-floor unit of a medical building near a suburban shopping centre, publishes an article most months: sensitive teeth, bleeding gums, how often children need a cleaning.

In 2013 a consultant set up authorship for the senior hygienist, and her photograph appeared beside the articles in Google's results for about a year.

When it disappeared in June last year, the practice assumed it had been penalised and paid for a search audit. The audit found nothing wrong; the change had applied to every site.

It did find something else. The articles themselves named nobody, so the writer's identity lived only in hidden code and on a Google+ profile almost nobody followed.

Now each article opens with her name, her title as a registered dental hygienist and the date it was last reviewed. It ends with three lines on her experience and a link to a page introducing both hygienists.

The weekly hour spent sharing on Google+ went into answering, in writing, the questions patients ask in the chair. A patient reading about gum disease can now see who wrote the advice, on the page itself.

Put the face on the page

The photograph that left the results belongs on the article itself: a small, real picture of the writer beside the byline, not a stock image of a smiling stranger.

Add a page for each regular writer, or one for the team, with roles, qualifications and how long each person has done the work. Link every byline to it, and use the same name and title in both places.

Dates belong beside the name

A name makes a page accountable, and that cuts both ways. Advice from 2012 with a qualified person's name on it reads as current advice from that person.

Show when each article was written and last checked. Review health, safety and money advice at least yearly, and change the date only when someone has actually reread it.

Where the hour goes now

The Google+ hour is better spent elsewhere. Fewer, better articles that answer the questions customers really ask. A complete Google My Business listing. A mention or link from a local association or supplier that knows your work.

And a monthly look at Search Console, formerly Webmaster Tools, where the Search Analytics report shows which searches your pages appear for and how often they are clicked.

The counter-case

Some businesses do have a real audience on Google+: photographers, technology firms and a few hobby communities. If people there comment and share, keep posting for their sake.

A shop whose site has no articles needs no bylines, and nobody asks who wrote the opening hours. The case is strongest for advice: health, money, law, safety and anything a reader might act on.

The old markup can wait for the next template change. Put the writer's name, qualifications and photograph on the page, where people decide whom to trust.

Before the next article

1. Find old Google+ author links in your template.
2. Replace Google+ buttons with links to a bio page.
3. Add a visible byline to every article.
4. Write a short bio with real qualifications.
5. Use a real photograph of each writer.
6. Show the last reviewed date on advice articles.
7. Move the Google+ hour to answering questions.

Step three is the one that replaces what Google took away. The byline used to sit in the results; now the only place it can do its work is on the page itself.

What Google does still tell you about your pages is covered in Webmaster Tools is now Search Console.

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West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.