Last week the SEO world was rocked when Google announced its plan to remove the author photos from search results. In the past adding authorship and the image in search results had proven to increase the number of clicks exponentially. The question remains, why did Google choose to implement this change that had only been in place a short while?
There are many speculations about this sudden change and the reasoning behind it. One school of thought believes that the change might be centered around user experience, and ties in with the search engines new 'mobile first' management strategy. The idea is that, eventually, mobile users will surpass desktop users making it the most important market. Because of this, Google is aiming to unify the site into a single site that is mobile and desktop friendly.
As a free service Google makes money off ppc advertisements that it places strategically in on its search pages and on other sites via Adsense, if it's clicks drop due to the advantage of a free service, like Google Authorship, then eliminating the advantage would seem like a natural solution.
Another school of thought suggests that the internet giant has implemented the change solely for the purpose of removing the unfair advantage an image gives search results over their ads. In recent years PPC ads have taken over much of the prime space in Google search, and if they aren't being clicked on then the bottom line will be affecte.
This is most likely one of the driving factors in the decision to eliminate author pictures from search results. This blow to SEO and online marketers will build the need to find more innovative ways to drive traffic to their site and keep their CTR up. Of course, lowered revenue due to the advantage author images affords might be one of the reasons Google has announced its plan to remove them from search results.
The official reason given me the internet giant was that the change was simply due to their new policy dubbed 'Mobile First'. The vision behind this new thought process comes from the belief that mobile users will surpass desktop users this year, and the companies aim is to create one unified site that caters to all platforms. That, coupled with a recent study that showed users preferred no images in their searches was the stated reason.
There are many speculations about this sudden change and the reasoning behind it. One school of thought believes that the change might be centered around user experience, and ties in with the search engines new 'mobile first' management strategy. The idea is that, eventually, mobile users will surpass desktop users making it the most important market. Because of this, Google is aiming to unify the site into a single site that is mobile and desktop friendly.
As a free service Google makes money off ppc advertisements that it places strategically in on its search pages and on other sites via Adsense, if it's clicks drop due to the advantage of a free service, like Google Authorship, then eliminating the advantage would seem like a natural solution.
Another school of thought suggests that the internet giant has implemented the change solely for the purpose of removing the unfair advantage an image gives search results over their ads. In recent years PPC ads have taken over much of the prime space in Google search, and if they aren't being clicked on then the bottom line will be affecte.
This is most likely one of the driving factors in the decision to eliminate author pictures from search results. This blow to SEO and online marketers will build the need to find more innovative ways to drive traffic to their site and keep their CTR up. Of course, lowered revenue due to the advantage author images affords might be one of the reasons Google has announced its plan to remove them from search results.
The official reason given me the internet giant was that the change was simply due to their new policy dubbed 'Mobile First'. The vision behind this new thought process comes from the belief that mobile users will surpass desktop users this year, and the companies aim is to create one unified site that caters to all platforms. That, coupled with a recent study that showed users preferred no images in their searches was the stated reason.
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