Google

Google Downplays Google+ With Updated Authorship Snippet?

authorship-adoptionGoogle has quietly changed the user interface for how they display the authorship snippet in the search results.

The largest difference is that they removed the “more by” link that linked to additional stories written by that author. The other changes include that now clicking on the author’s image and name will take you to a similar result set that you would have seen if you clicked on the old “more by” author link. I believe the author image and name use to take you to that author’s Google+ page, when available. Now, the only way to get to the Google+ page of the author is to click on the number of people who have circled that author.

Here are before and after shows, starting with the new interface, followed by the old.

New:

google-authorship-new-1366893396

Old:

google-authorship-old-1366893396

Hat tip to Mark Traphagen for informing of this via our comments.

Explore more on

Google Google Search Google+ Mark Traphagen Search engine optimization User interface
Add Search Engine Land as a preferred source on Google

Editorial disclosure

Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.

About the author

Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.