(11)
Let me get you up to speed... In October, Matt Cutts said there will be a 15% reduction in authority to only show authorship and rich snippets for authors who have a higher level of authority. That actually went through in mid-December and I hear complaints every single day from site owners that their rich snippets and authorship is gone.
Bill Hartzer and Mark Traphagen are having a conversation on Google+ where they say that it doesn't seem that the authorship reduction has to do with author authority. In fact, they say it does not have anything to do with author authority.
Mark Traphagen said it may be more related to the "publisher authority or quality."
Truth is, that is probably right. Because when Matt announced it in October, it was aimed at all of rich snippets, not just authorship. It was aimed at the quality of the site.
Now, Matt said his team is also working on author authority but that has not officially rolled out yet.
So at this point, I'd agree - the authorship reduction might not be related to author authority but rather website authority and quality. But in the future, it may be author specific.
Forum discussion at Google+.
Comments:
davidquaid
01/09/2014 01:38 pm
This all sounds good but is anyone else slightly concerned at the idea of having Google decide Author Authority? Is it global? Is it from an English point-of-view? I doubt Google have this well thought out!
Durant Imboden
01/09/2014 02:01 pm
I'm not even sure that it's related to "publisher quality or authority." (When I was testing travel-related search queries after the authorship reduction, About.com and Examiner.com were among the few sites that still had author photos in Google's SERPs.)
seokungfu
01/09/2014 02:02 pm
I've also observed lots of author pictures reappearing as for the last couple of weeks.
Alexander Hemedinger
01/09/2014 02:56 pm
Well how come my blogger isn't working as well with the snippet? I mean it is part of Google. So probably it has to do with the authority a little bit? Then again could be the site (content) as well. Thoughts anyone?
Sebbi Bastie
01/09/2014 03:28 pm
Well, i was hit by this drop of authorship as well es many others, probaly because my site was hit by last penguin on october 4th due to a negative seo link attack. Anyway, this sounds like, we can test that. My thought is, if there is an author, wich writes for high quality sites and a low quality site, there should be the authorship snippet with the high quality site, or am i wrong?
Michael Martinez
01/09/2014 03:40 pm
Authorship "author authority"
AbsoluteMcGarry
01/10/2014 02:59 pm
So why do Google bother to link it to Google+ activity in search results... I know many great websites that do very little on Google+ and they have complete sets of rich snippets and authorship showing in search results... but accompanied by a link saying " By Joe Bloggs - in 12 Google+ circles". Pitiful Google+ activity, but rewarded by having an alluring author image in the serps
Patti Paz
01/11/2014 12:11 pm
How can you tell your author authority?
p'd off poster
01/15/2014 11:36 am
Commenting on this blog is becoming a waste of my time.... no come back, no replies, the irony as I write a final comment... pointless one way gossip blog
Barry Schwartz
01/15/2014 11:42 am
I'm sorry.
Barry Schwartz
01/15/2014 11:43 am
I guess if you have an authorship snippet.