Do we need to remove Google Authorship from the blog?
-
Search Engine Land reported that Google confirms that Authorship results in search are being intentionally reduced.
It appears that the Matt Cutts-promised reductions to the amount of Google Authorship results being shown in Google Search has begun.
Do we need to remove a Google Authorship tag from the blog? Because it hurts the ranking?
-
Generally agree with everyone (well, everyone so far ) - there's no need to remove authorship in general. Google isn't penalizing sites with authorship - they're just showing authorship thumbnails less often, as they found they were overdoing it (at least in the eyes of users).
The only exception I'd give is to be careful about applying authorship tags to every page on a site - home page, search results, product pages, etc. Some CMSs go crazy, unfortunately. This is technically against Google authorship guidelines. Again, most likely, they'll just ignore your authorship mark-up (it's not a penalty situation), but if you want that mark-up to appear in SERPs, then use it appropriately.
-
Definitely retain authorship for the blog. Having it in place will not have any negative impact but could have a positive impact. What Google are clearly aiming to do is to try an ensure that only authors that it views as deserving of authorship will have the rich snippets appearing in search. Essentially what they are saying is having authorship implemented is no guarantee of your authorship appearing in SERPs - rather those authors with 'authority' will be more likely to have enhanced appearance in SERPs.
-
Hi Varun,
Oh NO please don't remove your authorship. It could become a sign within the eyes of Google to identify the credibility of authors in the future. Also Google is only showing less authorship results in the search engine result pages but that doesn't mean they will put less weight on them.
-
Dear Varun,
Matt Cutts is not saying it will harm all websites - only that 'saying that the ability to have and use rich snippets may be taken away for low quality sites in the coming months.'*
So you have to make the decision if you think the article / website is of low quality. If you post high quality content, it shouldn't harm your website but it even will lift your website because it becomes harder to have your authors displayed in the SERPs.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
To remove or not remove a redirected page from index
We have a promotion landing page which earned some valuable inbound links. Now that the promotion is over, we have redirected this page to a current "evergreen" page. But in the search results page on Google, the original promotion landing page is still showing as a top result. When clicked, it properly redirects to the newer evergreen page. But, it's a bit problematic for the original promo page to show in the search results because the snippet mentions specifics of the promo which is no longer active. So, I'm wondering what would be the net impact of using the "removal request " tool for the original page in GSC. If we don't use that tool, what kind of timing might we expect before the original page drops out of the results in favor of the new redirected page? And if we do use the removal tool on the original page, will that negate what we are attempting to do by redirecting to the new page, with regard to preserving inbound link equity?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoelevated0 -
Removing Blogs and 301 redirect to blog home page?
Hi, I was at the MozCon conference in Seattle this Summer and heard great concepts about deleting a lot of pages on your site that are deemed excess. It got me thinking to remove all of our old blogs that were: Sales(ee) less than 400 words Flat out bad blogs When i begin removing these links, i know i will get a lot of 404 errors because of previous social links. So in your opinion, what would you do? Do i just 301 those blogs to my main /blog page? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Remove Google penalty or make a new website, Which is better??
My local website was hit by google and I have done all steps to remove the penalty, But it's still not ranked. So it is better to make a new website with new content and start working on it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan_Brown10 -
Site rankings steadily decreasing - do I need to remove links?
Since mid-April, our ranking have been steadily declining. Our two main keywords are 'nuts and bolts' and 'bolts and nuts'. 'nuts and bolts' dropped from 7th to 46th in May and has recovered slightly to 28th, and 'bolts and nuts' moved from 7th to 16th, and is today 24th. Ranking on keywords we specialise in have fared better, but they're fairly niche. 'bsw bolts' has moved from 2nd to 4th, and 'imperial bolts' has moved from 1st to 4th. I think my link profile is the issue. I don't think we've been penalised by Penguin directly (I may be wrong, I don't think we'd be page 2 on such a competitive term as 'bolts and nuts' after Penguin if we had been penalised.), but I think what's happened is that sites that link to us have been penalised, resulting in a knock on effect. Does that sound right? Here's my link profile: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.thomassmithfasteners.com</a> I've been slowly building relevant links with prospective customers and kept up a very basic social media profile - just the odd blog post and sharing on Facebook and Twitter. Do I need to delete all the directory links? We do have links from directories that don't look fantastic, more are shown in Webmaster Tools than are listed here. Some of the directories no longer seem to exist, I take it I don't need to do anything and Google will catch up in those cases. Should I attempt to remove (or disavow) all links with names like best-directory etc? Or should I just concentrate on building better links? I'm not sure where to start! Any advice is greatly appreciated. Best Regards, Stephen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stephenshone0 -
Google Places Listing Active In Two Seperate Google Places Accounts?
Hi is there any issues with having a google places listing in two seperate google places accounts. For example we have a client who cannot access their old google places account (ex-employee had their login details which they can't get) and want us to take control over the listing. If we click the "is this your listing" manage this page button - and claim the listing, will this transfer the listing to our control? Or will it create a duplicate? Are there any problems having the listing in different separate accounts. Is it a situation in which the last person who manages the listing takes control? And the listing automatically deactivates from the old account? Do all the images remain aswell? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney
Tom0 -
How to get around Google Removal tool not removing redirected and 404 pages? Or if you don't know the anchor text?
Hello! I can’t get squat for an answer in GWT forums. Should have brought this problem here first… The Google Removal Tool doesn't work when the original page you're trying to get recached redirects to another site. Google still reads the site as being okay, so there is no way for me to get the cache reset since I don't what text was previously on the page. For example: This: | http://0creditbalancetransfer.com/article375451_influencial_search_results_for_.htm | Redirects to this: http://abacusmortgageloans.com/GuaranteedPersonaLoanCKBK.htm?hop=duc01996 I don't even know what was on the first page. And when it redirects, I have no way of telling Google to recache the page. It's almost as if the site got deindexed, and they put in a redirect. Then there is crap like this: http://aniga.x90x.net/index.php?q=Recuperacion+Discos+Fujitsu+www.articulo.org/articulo/182/recuperacion_de_disco_duro_recuperar_datos_discos_duros_ii.html No links to my site are on there, yet Google's indexed links say that the page is linking to me. It isn't, but because I don't know HOW the page changed text-wise, I can't get the page recached. The tool also doesn't work when a page 404s. Google still reads the page as being active, but it isn't. What are my options? I literally have hundreds of such URLs. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeanGodier0 -
Google+ Authorship for Multi-Author Company Blogs
Can a company's Google+ page be designated as the author of web content (as can be done with individuals) so that the COMPANY comes up as the author in the web results? Is it preferable for company bloggers to create individual Google+ profiles and be listed as the author of the posts that they write? Or rather is it a smarter move to create a company persona (under the guise of a real person) and have all authorship be attributed to that personal Google+ profile. AuthorRank is going to become more and more important to Google's algorithm. As bloggers write for a company, if they are listed as the author of the work, they create trust for their own personal brand. If and when this employee leaves, this equity is presumably taken with them instead of remaining with the company. Is this assumption correct? How are companies dealing with this potential issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AnthonyMangia0 -
Removed Internal Rel=NoFollows from power internal page - how long till reflected in Google?
I just started with a client, who has an internal page (not the homepage) that gets about 70% of all total links to the site and ranks #1 for a highly competitive keyword. For some reason, the first set of links, including the first anchor text link to the homepage are nofollowed. I removed the nofollows yesterday. Today, The internal page has already been reindexed in Google showing the followed anchor text link to the homepage Should I expect a jump in link juice pointing to my homepage immediately with a corresponding rankings boost? Homepage is #8 for target term. I hope this makes sense. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattAaron0