Sometimes, you really have to wonder what’s going on inside Google’s head. First of all, they axed the immensely popular RSS feed reader, Google Reader, to much protest from everyone in the blogosphere. Then, they continue to pour resources into Google +, which, in the three years it has been in existence, has never really tipped into the mainstream.
Now, they’ve axed Google Authorship. As a blogger, I really liked Google Authorship. It was a great marketing device for bloggers, because, in search results, your photo and a short description of your article would show up. You can read more in a post I wrote about a year ago here.
If marketing is creating relationships based on trust, then the majority of the time, you’re going to click on the search result with a photo, right? Doesn’t that make sense? Well, very quietly, a few months back, Google removed that feature from Authorship, and now, it appears, it has gotten rid of Authorship all together.
If you’re curious as to why, read this detailed article on Search Engine Land.
My guess is, many people found it somewhat complicated to implement, added to the fact that Google seems to want to steer everything to G+. Now, when I do a search for one of my articles, what comes up most often in the first page of Google is the G+ post I wrote sharing that article.
I must admit to feeling a bit burned by Google right now. But my advice is, if you want your blog to show up in search engine results, you should probably have and use a G+ account. Although maybe that’s exactly what they want…