Google Announces the End of Author Photos in Search: How This Affects Your Business

Google giveth and Google taketh away.

Google released a surprising announcement from John Mueller that drastically changes how our search results appear in search engine results. Google is dropping authorship photos from search results.

Our company loves to connect content writers with their Google authorship. Authors who have claimed and verified authorship increased the chance of their click through rates. The pictures previously shown in the search results connect the searchers to the person who has written the article.

If you have previously verified authorship through Google+ and Google chose to display it, an author photo might have been displayed in Google search results.

What is the reason behind Google’s decision?

John Mueller stated they were working to create a “better mobile experience and a more consistent design across devices.”

Could this have happened because these photos take up a lot of real estate on small mobile screens?

What is staying the same?

1. Authorship is still here
2. Authors’ names are still included in serach results
3. Rankings will not change
4. Authorship must still be verified

For more information, check out Moz’s own Cyrus Sheaper and his detailed post about Google’s sudden decision.