Page 9 - index
P. 9
RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS
Google Authorship:
Eulogy and lament of
its premature death
End of last month Google pulled An article Authorship markup reputation, yet. Only around three
the plug on Authorship that allowed comes across as trustworthy and years ago Google began to encour-
linking up content with a Google+ allows faster estimations whether age webmasters to use the
profile. This worked either by "rel =" the target article is of high quality rel=”author” and rel=”me” tags for
author "or with a link to the and therefore worth reading, be- pieces of content that an author
Google+ profile of the author, so sides preventing duplicate content wrote, and when Google+ was un-
that Google could recognize as Google knows now the original veiled, the entire Google Author-
properly who wrote the article. author and may punish plagiarists ship plan came together as there
in a targeted manner. was a way to connect content with
In the search engine result pages its authors.
(SERPs) of Google the Authorship Hence, the Google Authorship is
had the effect that, in addition to important for copyright protection, Conclusion
the search result, an image of the too.
author, his name, and the number In the end, the idea probably didn’t
of Google + contacts appeared. A quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO of take off as expected due to the low
Unfortunately, Google never hit it Google, actually leaves no doubt adoption rates by webmasters
big and got out of the experimental that Google wanted to go into this and authors and the fact that it
phase with its authorships. direction, staying: „Within search provided no sufficient added val-
results, information tied to verified ue for searchers.
Pros online profiles will be ranked higher
than content without such verifica- In his post, declaring the end of
tion, which will result in most users
Of course, Google wanted to push naturally clicking on the top Authorship, Google’s John Mueller
ahead the growth of its network (verified) results […]. The true cost stated that the displayed author
Google+ with the Authorship and of remaining anonymous then information seemed not to have
had the patent on Authorship and might be irrelevance; even the most been “as useful to our users as
the related Agent Rank respective- fascinating content, if tied to an we’d hoped, adding, “with this in
ly, already patented in 2007. From anonymous profile, simply won’t be mind, we’ve made the difficult deci-
Authorship, Google hoped to get, seen because of its excessively low sion to stop showing Authorship in
over the long term, a reliable factor ranking.” search results.” However, he ex-
to evaluate the quality of content on plains as well, Google is “strongly
the net much better, as unlike links, committed to continuing and ex-
Authorships are difficult to manipu- Cons panding support of structured
late. Furthermore, an image gets markup”, such as schema.org,
more attention in the SERPs, which There have been indeed plenty of since “this markup helps all search
leads automatically to higher click- good reasons for the use of the engines to better understand the
through rates (CTR), not to mention Google Authorships, especially for content and context of pages on
that for the user an author’s picture authors who want to build up a the web”, confirming that Google
is a sign of quality. strong reputation on the Web, alt- will continue to use it to show rich
hough there would be a loss of an- snippets in search results.
onymity. Pity, therefore, that
Google couldn’t develop it to its full That sounds as if Authorship is
potential and it doesn’t answer the coming back one fine day – and
question “Why not?” either. then for sure much stronger! ◊
The idea to influence page rankings By Daniela La Marca
based on the reputation of its au-
thors by using digital signatures is
great, scoring trusted agents higher
than those who didn’t earn a good
MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd - Independant ePublisher for Asia
Google Authorship:
Eulogy and lament of
its premature death
End of last month Google pulled An article Authorship markup reputation, yet. Only around three
the plug on Authorship that allowed comes across as trustworthy and years ago Google began to encour-
linking up content with a Google+ allows faster estimations whether age webmasters to use the
profile. This worked either by "rel =" the target article is of high quality rel=”author” and rel=”me” tags for
author "or with a link to the and therefore worth reading, be- pieces of content that an author
Google+ profile of the author, so sides preventing duplicate content wrote, and when Google+ was un-
that Google could recognize as Google knows now the original veiled, the entire Google Author-
properly who wrote the article. author and may punish plagiarists ship plan came together as there
in a targeted manner. was a way to connect content with
In the search engine result pages its authors.
(SERPs) of Google the Authorship Hence, the Google Authorship is
had the effect that, in addition to important for copyright protection, Conclusion
the search result, an image of the too.
author, his name, and the number In the end, the idea probably didn’t
of Google + contacts appeared. A quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO of take off as expected due to the low
Unfortunately, Google never hit it Google, actually leaves no doubt adoption rates by webmasters
big and got out of the experimental that Google wanted to go into this and authors and the fact that it
phase with its authorships. direction, staying: „Within search provided no sufficient added val-
results, information tied to verified ue for searchers.
Pros online profiles will be ranked higher
than content without such verifica- In his post, declaring the end of
tion, which will result in most users
Of course, Google wanted to push naturally clicking on the top Authorship, Google’s John Mueller
ahead the growth of its network (verified) results […]. The true cost stated that the displayed author
Google+ with the Authorship and of remaining anonymous then information seemed not to have
had the patent on Authorship and might be irrelevance; even the most been “as useful to our users as
the related Agent Rank respective- fascinating content, if tied to an we’d hoped, adding, “with this in
ly, already patented in 2007. From anonymous profile, simply won’t be mind, we’ve made the difficult deci-
Authorship, Google hoped to get, seen because of its excessively low sion to stop showing Authorship in
over the long term, a reliable factor ranking.” search results.” However, he ex-
to evaluate the quality of content on plains as well, Google is “strongly
the net much better, as unlike links, committed to continuing and ex-
Authorships are difficult to manipu- Cons panding support of structured
late. Furthermore, an image gets markup”, such as schema.org,
more attention in the SERPs, which There have been indeed plenty of since “this markup helps all search
leads automatically to higher click- good reasons for the use of the engines to better understand the
through rates (CTR), not to mention Google Authorships, especially for content and context of pages on
that for the user an author’s picture authors who want to build up a the web”, confirming that Google
is a sign of quality. strong reputation on the Web, alt- will continue to use it to show rich
hough there would be a loss of an- snippets in search results.
onymity. Pity, therefore, that
Google couldn’t develop it to its full That sounds as if Authorship is
potential and it doesn’t answer the coming back one fine day – and
question “Why not?” either. then for sure much stronger! ◊
The idea to influence page rankings By Daniela La Marca
based on the reputation of its au-
thors by using digital signatures is
great, scoring trusted agents higher
than those who didn’t earn a good
MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd - Independant ePublisher for Asia
