Google Authorship

Do SEO Companies Abuse Google Authorship for Blogs?

GOOGLE NO LONGER OFFERS AUTHORSHIP

Let me start by explaining what Google Authorship means. Google defines Authorship as follows:

“Google is piloting the display of author information in search results to help users discover great content…If you want your authorship information to appear in search results for the content you create, you'll need a Google+ Profile with a good, recognizable headshot as your profile photo.”

Life as a blogger is difficult enough. As an individual, content written must contain new and meaningful insights in order to end up with much of chance that people can find and then read your blog post.

Abuse of Google Authorship

However SEO companies are now abusing Google authorship to insert pictures on company websites that are not truly blogs. This only makes it that much more difficult for honest bloggers to reach a wider audience.

Google attempted to do bloggers a favour by allowing them to display small pictures of themselves in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Check out the image below of how a blogger can attract more attention to their posts by verifying authorship with Google.

Google Authorship

Notice, how in the above example there is legitimate usage of Google’s authorship since it actually displays the picture of the individual who created the blog post. Unfortunately, many SEO companies quickly found a method to abuse this practice in order to increase conversions when people find their company’s pages in Google. Now company websites (particularly those in the SEO industry) instead of blogs, end up with pictures in the SERPs. Take a look at this snapshot:

Denver SEO

Above you can notice the clear abuse of Google authorship. The websites are clearly designed for a company and are not individuals’ blogs. Furthermore, the first one does not even use a real image. Perhaps that part is OK, but it is still clearly against the spirit of personalising the results. Further, each website clearly abuses Google’s new authorship techniques to the detriment of honest bloggers, such as us.

Obviously, Google cannot enjoy the fact that companies are employing this practice and is likely to come up with a better way of detecting such in future algorithm updates. However, in the short run, these companies are clearly abusing a feature Google intended to improve search results. What can fellow bloggers do in the meantime, rather than just wait around?

Report Authorship Abuse

I suggest reporting instance such as these. Google actually setup a form specifically to report abuse of rich snippets, such as authorship. Google may not manually remove a site, but typically a person does manually review information sent and will at a minimum use the details to improve the algorithmic detection of such abuses in the future.

Please let me know your thoughts on this in the comments below. Share examples you noticed of other such instances. As a fellow blogger, I view it as my duty to help others in the same plight combat this abuse. Help me combat this practice by providing any guidance, suggestions, examples, and feedback below.

96 thoughts on “Do SEO Companies Abuse Google Authorship for Blogs?”

  1. Well, I m not in support of Google Authorship. I really don’t like it for a multi authored blog. I guess it’s all a google’s cleverness and they want to hit their Google+ at any cost.

    1. That is exactly my point also. Google tries to support Google plus by any means available. I think that the profile picture near the search result is nice for us bloggers but on the contrary it changes the way google used to operate. I mean a simple search engine with as little as possible clutter. I am afraid it might backfire. Think of a results page full of images etc… Other than that, the abuse of this technique was inevitable. It is an emerging technology and needs some refinement.

  2. Google Authorship is always a plus point for blogs. Because people normally click on blogs with image on 🙂

    Nice Post Thanks for share. Worth Reading it 🙂

  3. Unfortunately every time Google tries to implement an innovation there will always be people ready to take advantage of these changes, in an immoral way.

    1. Unfortunately this is a general human behavior.
      Every time there is a new law, some lawyers will find a way to avoid it.
      Some new software, some “nice guys” will try to virus it.

      And yes, I agree, the SEO companies are over aggressive.

  4. I just love this features. Its attract visitor because people always click on that link which looks attractive. After getting Authorship i can see some increase in my traffic too.
    Thanks for this post Brent Yorzinski.

    1. I agree with Amit. I seen an increase after I added my authorship to my blog. I also think it is now easier for people to find my post if they just take a second and look.

  5. Hi Brent, Google Authorship is something that I missed and it seems that I have to do for my blog. Now about the abuse of this feature to tell you the truth I cannot blame them since it’s natural to do it and in many cases SEO companies have blogs where in most cases the owner is the writer of many blog posts so I am not against it in these cases…

  6. This great feature is introduced for blogs not for websites and it’s certainly a misuse and anyone who notice such issue should complaint about it.

  7. Great piece – not sure if I have authorship on mine but will be checking it out today. Thanks for the tip. If you have a Google + page for a business would that show up automatically as authorship if you have a profile pic? Want to be sure mine does not violate any Google rules. Thanks so much for sharing this info.

  8. For blogs having a single author it can prove beneficial, but for multi-author blog this ain’t a good idea. Even my image was also displayed in the SERP’s but now I’m unable to see it.

  9. Clearly abuse is everywhere. It is the duty of other people who know what is right and wrong to give them justice. Thanks for posting this!

  10. @Akshay
    Certainly Google wants to promote G+; what is wrong with capitalism and a company electing to promote its services? I agree the Google likes to show they are clever, but again, what is wrong with that? When a blog uses multiple authors it gives webmasters the ability to allow search engines to display their images in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). I view this as a win for everyone.

    @Hursh
    I agree with you 100 percent that for legitimate blogs it is an excellent way to gain exposure in the SERPs as a writer. Equally true is that it helps searchers find topics and associate them with specific writers when browsing the SERPs.

    @Jack
    People will always try to game the system and it certainly abuses Google’s guidelines as my post illustrates. However, calling the action immoral is stretching. One purpose of this post is to illustrate that Google should do a better job to prevent people and companies from abusing the use of Google authorship. The markup is intended to highlight individual writers’ contributions by displaying their pictures in the SERPs.

    @Moshin
    A newer method to implement Google authorship does not require blog owners to place any links to their G+ profile. Please review my initial post that contains a link with instructions from Google on how to verify authorship without placing a link on a blog to a G+ page.

    @Amit
    When used correctly it is excellent for everyone. Searchers end up with better results and honest bloggers receive more traffic.

  11. @Kostas
    I certainly suggest that every legitimate blog implement authorship. I do not blame the individuals who use these techniques anymore than I blame an alcoholic for drinking. There is often a short term benefit received at the expense of longer term consequences. Eventually Google will catch up to these alcoholics and they will experience a hangover.

    I also wanted to clarify my position. I agree that when the writer of a company’s blog is a single individual than that person should certainly use Google authorship since that is one reason it exists. However, the owner should only use it on the blog portion of the site. The markup is not intended to show a person’s picture next to a company’s homepage; if such were the case, each search result could contain a person’s photo next to the listing. The examples in my post each go to a company’s homepage, not a blog section or article.

    @Lisa
    Thank you and that is an excellent and intriguing question. Using a business’ Google+ page is an excellent way to include a picture that would not violate Google’s guidelines. I am a little surprised, nobody utilized such an approach. I imagine the people who abuse the authorship guidelines spend an enormous amount of effort gaming the system and overlook a white hat approach like the one you pointed out. That said, it would not surprise me if Google changed its guidelines to not allow such, but for now that is a smart and perfectly legitimate method.

    @Arbaz
    Why is it a bad idea for a blog with multiple authors? Please elaborate.

    @All
    Please keep in mind this post is about the abuse of Google authorship, not if you like the fact that it exists. I appreciate everyone’s comments and questions, particularly Lisa’s that specifically relates to the blog topic and not G+ in general.

    Are there any people reading this whom either abused the authorship or experienced a competitor abusing it to their detriment? I am keen to keep this discussion focused on the subject of the post. There is actually a secret tidbit of information regarding the search example I gave that I may reveal later. Can anyone here beat me to pointing it out?

  12. I agree with Brent. SEOs ought to keep their ugly faces out of the SERPs, especially when all they did is abuse a rich snippet. These de-emphasizes the concept in favor of more gaming by the usual suspects.

    1. No comment on if their faces are ugly. However, I certainly agree with the rest. Use the tool mentioned above to report the abuse when you notice it on the web.

  13. Google play their own game and try to chase everybody else out of the playground, nevertheless the sandbox.

  14. Brent,

    I’ve seen this problem happening… The idea is fantastic. You get to show your face next to your work Online. Great idea.

    But then Hardcore Internet marketers make it less powerful but abusing… Very annoying.

    Thanks for the thoughts!!

    Ryan H.

    1. Yes, this hurts those who use authorship legitimately. Do you use the link mentioned in the post to report the abuse? Do you mind sharing a few queries where you noticed people abusing the authorship? Thanks.

  15. I’ll be honest at the moment I don’t like Google for their updates and random account banning spree. I really hope a challenger can come to into the fray very soon!

  16. I think it’s really unfair that these people are abusing the authorship privileges, but I also believe that Google will probably fix these requirements very soon. There’s no way they can allow it to continue, so I think we’ll start seeing them drop from the search pages soon enough.

    1. Hi Paul,

      Thank you for the comment. I agree with you, but question when ‘soon’ will actually occur.

      I visited your site in hopes of helping you implement Google’s Authorship if you had not already done such. However, when I type it your URL into Google, I can see that you are actually abusing the markup exactly in the way I described. Thus hopefully for your sake ‘soon’ is awhile down the road. Your site even abuses other rich snippets.

      I suspect you may not realize this since it is unlikely you would of written this comment. Thus, I wanted to make you aware of the fact that your site is actually one that a competitor may report to Google for such abuse.

  17. great article my dear friend. Hope google will come up with some more innovative ideas to ban this practive, They want only information not promoted authorship.
    ~rakesh kumar

    1. Exactly correct Rakesh; Google is attempting to provide a better user experience not give companies a method to increase their CTR’s with a picture.

  18. Once all the SEO spammers catch on to this idea, the SERPS will be full of little faces and eventually they to will be ignored. But I think one should exploit it while it is good.

    1. Hi John,

      This is similar to other techniques that companies use to manipulate only much easier than most. The risk in doing such is that your entire website looses its rankings as many people experienced from the recent Penguin update. Certainly webmasters are able to do such, but Google almost always finds a way of punishing sites who exploit such.

      I suspect if it is exploited to the degree you described Google will take action much faster to eliminate the practice.

  19. I agree with you. I’m an SEO myself but I would say that authorship is specifically designed for articles and blog posts rather than a way to attract attention to websites trying to sell and advertise their product. Great post, thanks.

    1. Hi Jim,

      Thank you for the kind words. I also do white-hat SEO for a living and in the end it always works out. Nice to see another white-hat SEO blogger reading the post. I certainly like it when others agree with my position, but I also enjoy a debate with anyone who disagrees. Those who disagree are welcome to let me know why in the comments below.

  20. Brent,

    What a helpful article (inspired a bunch of ideas in my head, as well.. 🙂 ). It is sad that good things can be manipulated, but that seems to be human nature, for some humans. Glad there is great diversity out there, as well.

    -Deborah

      1. Hi Brent, It got me thinking of how-to videos. The problem is, sometimes the ideas come faster than I jot them down! (I should have put them in the comment…) lol -Deborah

  21. I like Google Authorship. I tried to implement it for my blog but it hasn’t been approved yet. Any idea what the problem could be? Should I reapply?

    1. It is now much easier with the new 1st option available. Simply click on the link referenced in the post. After that it generally takes a couple days for Google to add your picture in the SERPs. There are other factors aside from this that impact if your picture is displayed. After a couple days you can verify if you set this up properly by going to the Rich Snippets Testing Tool: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets . Please let me know if you still encounter problems after a few days and I will provide more insight to help.

  22. I have a feeling lots of SEO companies are very dubious. Many of them are playing with blackhat techniques. I got an email from a company offering $50 for a blog post on one of my sites. I accepted and then they told me, its a link back to a casino site. Now would you believe that. It is because of these dubious SEO companies, Google has to update its algorithm all the time and ultimately hits us. We been to boycott them.

    1. I appreciate your reply, but it is quite hypocritical as you are adding fuel to the fire and engaging in dubious practices as well by accepting payment to display a post. Any penalty received is deserved.

  23. It is sad that big companies target small blogs and bloggers to earn a few more dollars. I hope that Google will find a way to fix this. It is unfair for small blogs 🙁

    1. Hi Rashmi,

      Google has more engineers than NASA; I suspect it is only a matter of time before this is rectified. This will likely occur faster if there is more publicity and/or abuse that takes place regarding the authorship abuse.

      1. I hope so. I trust Google in matters like that. Most money for Google come from a lot of small businesses instead of the 10 huge ones. Either way Google will protect its customers! Thank you for answer!

  24. As what we expected, not all Google update and the latest authorship good for all. There some affected and others not a big deal for them. Google will do anything for their own
    interest.

    1. Google is not perfect, but I give them credit for rolling out a feature that will benefit honest bloggers. The only question is not if they crack down on the abuse, but when they update the algorithm to allow such. Help Google help honest bloggers by reporting the abuse using the link in my original post.

      1. Nothing wrong with accepting posts in return of money. It was offered and not asked for, if you don’t mind. There are many programmes who offer money to write reviews or pay you to write for their products, sites etc. You happen to be guest blogging for this blog in return for free link backs, didn’t you. Same thing. So why be upset of someone else does it.

        1. Hi Shalu,

          Please reply under the appropriate section to keep the dialogue smooth. Perhaps, you missed my point in response to your comment. There is nothing immoral about accepting posts for money, but it is against Google’s terms of service and guidelines if you fail to add a rel=”nofollow” attribute to a paid link.

          More importantly, I am not upset nor does it matter to me what you elect to do with your own website. You stated, “I have a feeling lots of SEO companies are very dubious. Many of them are playing with blackhat techniques. I got an email from a company offering $50 for a blog post on one of my sites. I accepted…” then went on to say, “Now would you believe that. It is because of these dubious SEO companies, Google has to update its algorithm all the time and ultimately hits us.”

          You are missing the rationale behind my reply. Another way to sum up what I stated previously: Do not complain and blame SEO companies that your rankings dropped. You specifically engaged in a practice that is against Google’s guidelines and Google will treat your site accordingly.

          Yes, you are correct that there are many other programs that offer posts for money, that is one reason why many experienced a drop in rankings after Google’s Penguin update. Simply because many people are doing something does not make it appropriate. If your friend jumped off a cliff….

          I am a guest blogger and there is a link back to Agilis Marketing, that I founded, but that is in no way a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines. Actually, guest blogging is encouraged. Regarding the fact that you called this a free link, I can assure you that is not even close to the case. A fair amount of time, thought, etc. went into creating the post and now in responding to comments. I imagine many bloggers could take offense to that comment since there is an enormous amount of effort required to provide quality content and insights.

      2. I’m at a lost… Where are you getting that authorship is only for blogs and not websites, or businesses ? Am I missing something?

        1. I find myself asking the same exact question. I see nothing wrong with companies taking advantage of it. I mean it is more unfair for google to just allow bloggers to use the feature and not anyone else.

          1. There is no abouse… I had another comment on here showing how my authorship appears but I guess it got deleted… Anyway, all there doing is using rel publisher…

          2. The feature us intended for articles written by individual authors, that is why there are implementation guidelines for companies whom use more than one author. Generally authors posts on blog sites, but if the article is on another site aside from a blog there is nothing wrong with that. However, marking the homepage with rel=author to claim that the entire company site is written by an individual is misleading and not the intention of Google authorship.

            How is it unfair for Google to want only individuals to use this feature? That is why there are picture of people not company logos.

            Authorship is for individuals, to see the appropriate use for this and other micro data visit http://www.schema.org

  25. Nobody pointed out the tidbit of information that illustrates just how rampant the abuse is with the example I provided. I hoped someone could beat me to point it out and could give kudos.

    Tip: Type the phrase used in the example provided into Google to try and figure out the degree to which Google authorship is abused for this particular search query.

  26. Why they are taking so long to approve it ? it’s been more than 10 days now …how long usually they take to approve authorship?

    1. Sunil,

      The process is automated and it can take a few days before Google will populate the search results with your picture. I suggest first verifying everything is setup using exactly as Google desires using their rich snippet testing tool that I mentioned elsewhere on this page. If this tool shows that you are a verified author then there are other signals at play that influence if your picture appears in the SERPs. After checking the markup, if it is valid, please reply back with specifics and I am happy to take a look as to why your picture is not displayed.

  27. now a days most of the companies and local business men started Abuse of Google Authorship in their site these sites have only 4-5 pages and not have even blog in it.

  28. Someone told me that verify Google authorship can improve ranking on Google, is that right? I got it but still don’t get any good result.

    1. Google authorship primarily helps increase CTR’s on existing rankings. However, it is possible that using such provides a slight benefit since your G+ page will now contain a link that passes PR to the contributing blog. The impact of one extra link is likely negligible from an SEO and rankings standpoint.

  29. WELL, Nice post! I liked the Google authorship I’m verified author and I’ve checked Rich Snippets Testing Tool with my blog link everything is ok but my picture is not showing in google search why ?

    1. Hi Ajnabbi,

      Your picture now appears in the SERPs :). Type in the URL of the post notated in our reply and you can see such. Upon verification, it can take a little time for Google to populate the listings with your picture. There are other reasons that a picture might not show up after verification, but often this is the reason.

  30. Google Authorship will give identity for bloggers in search engine. So we have chance to get more amount traffic from search engine. 😀

  31. Thanks for a good article Brent. It is truly a shame that SEO companies and spammers are taking advantage of this really cool thing that Google set up. Still, I think it would be relatively easy to see of the person is coming from a real blog or not.

    I am confident that google is going to get better and better at filtering out the spammers and SEO scammers. It will just take more time. In the meanwhile, the rest of us just have to keep on working hard!

    1. Thank you for the kind words Dave. I am confident as well, we just need to keep working hard in the meantime as you mentioned. Google generally rewards white-hat techniques (eventually).

  32. Haven’t noticed it yet. So, the next thing might be Hosting companies using video or Google authorship for their sites and it would look funny 😛

  33. You’re right. That is not a fair competition. But then again, there is no such thing like Fair Competition in Google SERP. Poor blogger.

  34. Alright, nobody responded yet regarding the degree to which authorship is abused in the example highlighted in my original post. Thus, I figured now is a decent time to point out the degree abuse and am interested to hear people’s comments….

    When typing the query used in my example, the two profiles that appear are actually the same person! However, this individual went out of his way to create two separate Google profiles with two separate images for each one. Based on the whois information that the person likely also owns the two separate domains.

    Thus this individual not only abused authorship to the degree indicated in the post, but took it a step further by creating a second Google profile that allows a picture to appear twice on the same SERP, thus likely further increasing the combined CTR’s for that and potential other queries.

  35. Whatever! But Showing up yourself on Google’s page is really awesome. I love this authorship feature. It is good for seo, i guess. Because Google is promoting us to do so.

    1. ? Whatever ? The fact that Google is promoting the service is indicative that that the company imagines such will improve the quality of SERPs; it does not mean it is positive for SEO. Please keep in mind that SEO and CRO are two different niches of online marketing.

      1. Rizwan Sultan

        But I didn’t get any response from Google you have any links or blog that will guide me for implementing authorship.

        1. You will not receive a response accept an automated reply to confirm your email. As far as what to do, simply read the post above and go to the authorship link.

  36. Does everybody know there are plug-ins that can help get your authoriship info out there.
    Paid and free, the ones I’ve used have all been for wordpress sites, but I’m sure others exist too.
    Every little helps online after all.

  37. Google authorship great way to get acknowledged in search engine you as blog author, I think in social media marketing servics, personal recognition also very important to build reputation on internet.

  38. Hello Brent, Good article. I love this google authority service. I completely agree with you that SEO companies spam this service. So there must be an option to report abuse the spam blogs. Great share. Thank you.

  39. Never tried enabling Google Authorship before. After reading the post and also the comments I think I should give it a try.

  40. One of the things I find annoying is that authors who write for the “mega sites” like About.com are really dominating so many niches simply because of the authority of the site. I really don’t know if I like these images appearing all over the place.

    1. Hi John,

      Google utilises many signal when determing if an author’s image is displayed in the SERPs. Recognised wuthors are more likely to see their photos appear. However, little known blogger can aslo appear. Please let me know if you need any assistance with this.

      Cheers,
      Brent Yorzinski

  41. Not many people should be happy about this, i also reported many such seo companies that are using such images which are not even real persons. this must be only limited to blogs.

    1. Hi Ray,

      Glad to see another blogger on the same page with me. As long as we keep on our white-hats and assist Google by reporting the abuse then it will reward our sites in the end 🙂

  42. I love rich snippets – – I hate rich snippets.
    I use the star review plugin for my blogs and it makes them stand out in the SERPs so I love them. When the bogus reviews start showing up for all the sites, I will hate them, and this abuse WILL happen along with authorship in the future.

  43. T.A. Cleargrade

    I would be glad to, Brent

    My favorite is called WP Customer Reviews . It is free and you can find it easily in WordPress by searching. In addition to being free, it provides some microformating.

    For an example of what it looks like, do a Google search for: Charleston RV Rental and you will see what the review snippet looks like on that site: http://charlestonrvrental.com/ (about #4)

    Since no other site has reviews (yet) it really makes my customer’s stand out.

    1. Thanks T.A.,

      I imagine this certainly helps increase CTR’s. Furthermore it is done in a white-hat way that allows individuals to submit testimonials and does not use any dodgy practices.

      – Brent Yorzinski

  44. I wouldnt worry too much about abuses like this. In the short term they can be reported and in the longer term it will be taken care of algorithmically. If Google goes down the route of building AuthorRank into their ranking algorithm then the quality of content produced by a given author (measured by the degree to which it is shared socially) will mean that only quality content/authors will rise to the top.

    It is a short term abuse, but SEOs who employ tactics like that can only do so in the short term (although they keep investing new tricks for each repetition of the “short term”)

    1. Hi Gary,

      I can certainly see ‘AuthoRank’ as a factor. Google actually already display this data in the SERPs for authors whom possess many people in their circles. Using this as a signal for to determine the position of the site within the SERPs is the next logocal step.

      I am not worried about it by any means since I agree with you about Google improving its algorithm. However, as you pointed out the ‘short-term’ is of uncertain length and there is generally followed by another technique that an website can once again use for the ‘short term’.

      Thank you for the insightful comment.

      Cheers,
      Brent Yorzinski

  45. The same kind of abuse has been going on for months using the reviews and rating snippet that Google shows up on the search pages.

    1. Hi Karan,

      Excellent point; you are exactly right that similar types of abuse are talking place with all types on rich snippets across Google at the moment. Fake reviews are one excellent example. I am starting to see signs of Google tapering back on allowing this abuse, but am yet to notice any major algorithm changes to dramatically curb the abuse by search engine optimisation companies, or anyone else for that matter. Hopefully, this is adjusted sooner rather than later.

  46. nice point; you are exactly right that similar types of abuse are talking place with all types on rich snippets across Google at the moment. Fake reviews are one excellent example. I am starting to see signs of Google tapering back on allowing this abuse, but am yet to notice any major algorithm changes to dramatically curb the abuse by search engine optimisation companies, or anyone else for that matter. Hopefully, this is adjusted sooner rather than later.

  47. priya singhai

    I m not in support of Google Authorship.Google is just trying to promote its Google Plus

Comments are closed.