Google Have Removed Profile Images From SERPs

By Alan Coleman on 4 Jul 2014

Google Authorship Profile Pictures Removed From SERPs

The SEO world has been championing Google Plus and Google Authorship since the Penguin update in 2012. Here in Wolfgang, we've gone as far as calling Google Authorship as "the last SEO shortcut". The search community was rocked last week by the news that Google have removed our beloved Google Author profile pictures from the SERPS.

As a result of embracing Google Authorship and it's associated profile pictures, we've seen websites' organic traffic rocket off the back of increased rankings and increased CTRs. Google's explanation for removing the images is that they were cluttering up the SERPS and harming mobile user experience (what's that smell?). Despite what Google said about CTRs not benefiting from profile pictures, ask any search marketer, in fact no, ask any Google user, and they will tell you pictures attract more clicks. There are multiple studies finding that impact of profile pictures on CTRs has been huge.

What does this mean for you?

1/ Don't Panic, Your Organic Rankings (the big win) Won't Suffer!

Here's a quote from Google head honcho Eric Schmidt:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

The big win from authored content has been the "ranking" effect, this change damages the "CTR" effect which has been great too, but ranking comes first. Ranking is the major contributing factor to rocketing organic traffic. I predict authorship continues to get more important from a rankings perspective.

2/ But your CTR might suffer.

In the absence of pictures, your copy really has to pop! This makes copywiting more important, meaning smart content marketing gets more important.

3/ Getting to the why?

So what is Google thinking? Everybody know these profile pictures have been wildly successful for the few who have implemented them. Why punish the innovators?

Here's a quote from search hero Rand Fishkin.

I agree with Rand that there is a commercial reason behind the move but I don't believe authored posts (nearly always blog posts) are competing with advertisers for clicks. Google is very smart when it comes to who it shows ads to, and equally importantly who it doesn't show ads to. Authored Blog posts tend to show at the top of the funnel. They are informational articles and are read by information seekers rather than shoppers. Ad impressions tend to happen at the bottom of the funnel - to people are looking for specific product info and are ready to buy. Here's a typical search sequence for a travel shopper. Note how the top of funnel searches are met with mainly organic listings, blog posts & author profile pics. The bottom of the funnel searches are met with more ads and main landing page (as opposed to blog posts) in the organic list with no profile pics.

TOFO - Profile pic displayed and no ads displayed

From what we know about Google, if something has been wildly successful in the organic space (which we know this has) they will be keen to move it to the paid space. Google Shoppping has been Google's greatest digital marketing victory since remarketing. I cannot imagine they aren't aggressively seeking opportunites to replicate this success beyond retail.

So from what I know about Google I'm sure removing the profile pictures from the organic list is a first step towards moving them to the paid ads, and in time we will see...

Google Author Profile Pictures as ad extensions!

Paid for authored content would be a bold move for Google as people clicking on authored content are waaaaaaay up the funnel and are less likely to convert. But that's a whole other blog post.

Want to read more on the subject?

Here's a great post on the topic with a unique perspective from Wolfganger Jack.