It doesn’t take very long for Google to axe something that just isn’t quite “working out.” Google’s newest break up? Author Icons. Now, we all know about Google+ Authorship, and the purpose it serves, but in case you forgot, here’s a brief reminder. Signing up for authorship is beneficial because you can link content you publish on a specific domain to your Google+ profile, making it more personable.
Now that we remember what Google Authorship does, what’s the big fuss about no more Author Icons? Author icons were a neat feature on search result pages because if Google determines that an article, blog post, or other page was written by someone who has a Google+ profile, the author’s name may appear next to the search results, along with a profile photo. Now Google has taken away from us the profile photo and the circle count from the search listings where authorship is assigned to a web page, leaving searches blank and simply put, uninteresting. It was a huge perk for local businesses to have author icons because they enhanced viewer’s interest because there is something more on a search page other than just words. Now we could actually see a picture of the person who wrote the article, or a picture of the business that wrote a blog and published it through their Google+ profile, making organic search results skyrocket.
Good news about this is that it won’t happen to everyone all at once. Google is slowly adopting their recent break up globally, so don’t be surprised if one day it’s there and the next day it is gone!