More Content Marketing, Less Google Authorship Program

The Google Authorship program just got the axe.

What does this mean for your Google marketing and content marketing? According to Google, not a whole lot. They actually cut the program because most webmasters and authors simply weren’t using it. The program was around for three years, and the adoption rates continued to remain low, which could be in part due to how difficult it was to set up. Many webmasters scratched their heads after following the instructions only to find that it never really worked. This, along with a lack of promotion, led to only 30 percent of authors even trying to connect their content to a Google Author profile. To combat this Google tried to auto-attribute content to popular online authors which often led to mistakes like Truman Capote being given authorship of something long after his death.

Additionally, having an author profile with Google wasn’t increasing the number of clicks that articles were getting. While popular belief said that it did, their analytical data proved otherwise. Google has repeatedly shown that they are not afraid to scratch programs that don’t produce results, and the authorship program simply took more effort to process the data than was beneficial to the actual reader.

Content is Still King without Authorship

Instead, of focusing on authorship, the focus needs to be on good content marketing. Blogs and articles that are well written with interesting titles are more likely to do well in organic marketing, than one with the author’s photo showing up next to it. This is good news for everyone that never made their author profile. The data further confirms what Google has been talking about for the past several years – quality content marketing is the best way to increase your organic marketing efforts and overall search ranking. Users are looking for data that is interesting, compelling, and informative so well written blogs and articles will eventually outperform any gimmicks.

Those that are using their Google+ profile as part of their Google marketing strategy may still see their photo and other information show up when they post a blog, however, this may only appear for people that have some type of connection to the author. Google is all about integration across their platforms and doesn’t have any immediate plans to discontinue this. Just make sure that you publish your posts on Google+.

It is likely that Google will try to implement an updated version of this program in the future, simply because Google has a desire to gather and share information. Knowing who the author is may be helpful to the user but it will take a new, more simplistic approach to make a program like this work in the future. In the meantime, continue to focus on quality content marketing that can be attributed to you or your company both now and in the future. The more relevant blogs you publish, the better your organic marketing will be because it creates additional opportunities for you and your company to come up in a local search. Remember to publish it, and other data, across multiple platforms that include Google+ and YouTube for a greater impact.