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?
If you had an author pic associated with your Google links, then you had a distinct advantage. Having a picture associated with an article automatically conveys a certain sense of authority. Not only did this get you a boost in search ranks, but it also got you more clicks than people who didn't have author pics for their links.
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.
Studies have shown that users are drawn to pictures and search results that contain pictures find that their CTR increases at an astounding rate. In some cases the change is over 150%, and even in the lowest range a change of 30% is very impressive. This means that ads, even if they occupy the top three search spots, would be far less valuable.
It remains to be seen what else changes in the coming weeks. This comes only a little bit after the announcement of a Google "Panda" SEO adjustment, including the exclusion of backlinks factoring into search ranks.
The recent announcement by Google regarding the end of author pictures in search results took the SEO world by storm. This seemingly insignificant feature was actually a gem for online marketers that could raise their CTR by up to 150%. The question on everyones mind has become why did google implement this sudden change, and where do we go from here.
If you had an author pic associated with your Google links, then you had a distinct advantage. Having a picture associated with an article automatically conveys a certain sense of authority. Not only did this get you a boost in search ranks, but it also got you more clicks than people who didn't have author pics for their links.
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.
Studies have shown that users are drawn to pictures and search results that contain pictures find that their CTR increases at an astounding rate. In some cases the change is over 150%, and even in the lowest range a change of 30% is very impressive. This means that ads, even if they occupy the top three search spots, would be far less valuable.
It remains to be seen what else changes in the coming weeks. This comes only a little bit after the announcement of a Google "Panda" SEO adjustment, including the exclusion of backlinks factoring into search ranks.
The recent announcement by Google regarding the end of author pictures in search results took the SEO world by storm. This seemingly insignificant feature was actually a gem for online marketers that could raise their CTR by up to 150%. The question on everyones mind has become why did google implement this sudden change, and where do we go from here.
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Keyword Advantage is a news review site that reveals the truths & myths by providing a Keyword Advantage Review.
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