In the past, when a site added Google Authorship, a picture of the author, along with his or her Google+ credentials showed up next to the post/link. But now, surprise surprise, Google has made another change to its search results; they have removed the picture of the author, as well as his or her circle count.
What’s the reason behind this change? Google simply said ‘the search results seemed a little too cluttered with all of the Google+ information.’
John Muller, a representative of Google, claims that the click through behavior for this new less-cluttered format is similar to that of the old format. Whether this claim is true or not, can and will be determined within the next few weeks, comparing traffic from this month to previous months using Google Analytics.
The new design will still show the author’s name next to the post. See below:
If you’re having a little difficulty with what Google Authorship used to look like, see below:
As you can see, the old authorship had a little more information about the author, than the new format, as well as a picture. Now whether you like the new format verses the old format, is solely up to you; whether the new “less cluttered” format works better than the old “cluttered” format, will be determined in the upcoming weeks.