How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90% • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#31

Post by enjo » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:21 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #16

Interesting...you think of all the A/B metrics that Google tests, this would be among one of the most obvious standouts. The percentage of users who click on lower-ranked results is reportedly a big factor in the decision of how results are laid out and paginated (e.g. if the 12th result in Google SERP had a relatively similar amount of "usefulness" as the 10th, it's likely that Google would have the search pages sho…

There is clearly a strong internal focus on getting people to adopt G+, however. I wonder how that affects their decision making process here...

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#32

Post by bmac27 » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:27 PM UTC

When you're assessing the viability of microdata or any SEO strategy for that matter, you have to consider the context and whether or not it works for the market that you're in.

I don't see this as an indictment of Google Authorship at all; rather this is an example of a situation where user intention is misaligned with what a webmaster is showing. If I'm looking for content (particularly the originator of said content), having the author's name and face is exactly what I'm looking for. When you're searching for car parts or baby strollers or software, that same name/face is going to throw you off.

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#33

Post by mladenkovacevic » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:31 PM UTC

If someone was looking for macro-recorder, they probably just wanted a download link.

His authorship link makes it look like a review of some macro recorder software. I would actually consider an authorship link that's being triggered by a product page a bug that needs to be corrected ASAP.

EDIT: Strangely enough his authorship image is still triggered by a search for "macro-recorder". Did he reactivate it?

Now imagine if Google allowed him to tag his page with a "Software Download" tag.. and enabled him to attach a appstore like icon next to the search result instead of his face. Would that drive more clicks?

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#34

Post by Nursie » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:36 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #5

The photo is a tell-tale to me. Each time I see one on the first search results, they get filtered out by my brain (they are either 'news' or 'youtube'). But this is just my reaction.

Yup.

It screams blog/editorial content. I'm very, very rarely interested in blogs or editorials. Usually I seem to be after hard data or documentation.

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#35

Post by massarog » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:39 PM UTC

My question is, why did you add authorship sitewide? Authorship should be established only on jitbit.com/news/ where your blog is, NOT on your entire website. For example, if I search jitbit in google, your authorship photo is appearing for your domain, not good.

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#36

Post by tomkarlo » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #16

Interesting...you think of all the A/B metrics that Google tests, this would be among one of the most obvious standouts. The percentage of users who click on lower-ranked results is reportedly a big factor in the decision of how results are laid out and paginated (e.g. if the 12th result in Google SERP had a relatively similar amount of "usefulness" as the 10th, it's likely that Google would have the search pages sho…

You can't take one very specific case and then extend it to the entire corpus of searches / web sites. Any change to the SRP might result in less-than-optimal impact on a particular search but if it improves performance for a large number of other searches, it's still a good change overall.

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#37

Post by underdown » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #10

pdx wrote: post #2

I wonder if your Google+ Profile picture was your JitBit Name + Logo, you would have done better. I think it is your face that is the problem. Not because it's ugly, but because it's obviously a face, which is out of context when searching for "macro recorder". We naturally gloss over things that don't sync with what we expect.

I believe Google will only show a "recognizable headshot,"[1] not any image you give them. So you cannot use a logo. [1] https://plus.google.com/authorship

google now accepts a micro data format for logos - although I haven't really noticed them in SERPS yet http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/how-to-put-your-company-logo-on-go...

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#38

Post by crazygringo » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

Not surprised at all. Any time I ever see a social photo next to a search result, I automatically assume it's a social media post or page and won't even bother to look at it, if I'm looking for anything else.

Why on earth would anyone want a face associated with a program, website, or anything that's not a social media account?

But, very good to know the statistical result.

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#39

Post by graeme » Thu, May 30, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

massarog wrote: post #35

My question is, why did you add authorship sitewide? Authorship should be established only on jitbit.com/news/ where your blog is, NOT on your entire website. For example, if I search jitbit in google, your authorship photo is appearing for your domain, not good.

Yes, this mars the result. I wonder if things are different when it's only on blog posts.

Blog post search results are also more likely to field multiple results with authorship pictures.

Still, worrisome if it's the only top ranked result with a photo. I imagine this will fade over time as people get used to it, took me a few months to figure out what was going on, as a user.

Re: How Google Authorship decreased our traffic by 90%

#40

Post by mhoad » Thu, May 30, 2013, 4:01 PM UTC

As someone who for the past several years has done very high end legitimate SEO consulting to fortune 500 style companies (i.e. not the spammy mess than the HN crowd would usually associate with SEO), I am more than happy to go on the record and say that for what it's worth, this is the exception and not the rule.

As a few others here have pointed out, slapping Google Authorship markup all over your site is probably not a good idea unless you run a pure news / blog style site.

One other point to note though as well is that I am very familiar with that message in GWT telling you that traffic dropped by a crazy percentage overnight. Given everything going on in the SEO space at the moment, I am not entirely convinced just yet that you don't have a case of correlation rather than causation at the moment.