Google Removes Authorship Images In SERP

What Happened To Your Authorship Image?

If you're like most people, your wondering what happened to authorship. Why did Google remove the profile images? Is it a permanent change or will they add them back? Will this adversely affect your site in search results? What good is authorship without the image? Why did Google push authorship so hard if they weren't going to keep it? Did you waste a bunch of time working on something that's now defunct? 

Cool Your Jets

Don't jump to conclusions.  Do some reading. I've put together some links to articles about what's going on. I hope you find them helpful.

What The Experts Are Saying!

John Mueller makes the announcement at 3:21PM. It's in a post in which he simply says 

"As a part of this, we're simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results, removing the profile photo and circle count."  There is nothing in his statement that indicates Google is dropping authorship.

Barry Schwartz posts an article to Search Engine Land at 3:51PM. He appears to be a bit skeptical about it. But he doesn't sound the alarms and call all hands on deck. He concludes with some links on how to implement authorship. This make me believe that Google isn't 'dropping authorship'. It's just changing the way it displays them.

Danny Goodwin weighs in shortly after that with an article on Search Engine Watch.  He didn't seem to like the change. He too didn't seem too upset. But he also shared an opinion from an SEO Consultant that disagreed with Mueller.  You can read that on his post.

Eli Fennell made it clear in his post that the image wasn't the main reason to implement Authorship.

Mark Traphagen states in his post that this in no way indicates the 'end of authorship.'

And finally Padraig Ó Raghaill even suggests in his post that loosing the image has 'done you a favor'.

In Conclusion: Keep On Keepin' On

So read the articles. If you still feel like you've wasted your time on authorship, there's only one thing to do. Read them again. 

The sky isn't falling, and the sun will come out tomorrow.