Google Authorship Disappeared?

Google search engine displays a rich snippet no more

Just recently, many Bloggers have lost their rich snippet image in each of their posts. Google search engine displays no rich snippet any more!

Have you checked your blog? Does your picture as the author of your blog, appears on each of your post? You better check it out.

As  a Blogger it is my usual routine to test my blog in google search. How it looks like? Which post has the better position in search results? How do I look, in my rich snippet image? Then I discovered that my picture isn’t showing beside my posts. I felt disappointed, to be frank.

Before

 

 

But still I am trying to condition my mind, maybe it is  just because that the Webmaster tool is doing some updates which I am aware of. So, I logged in to Webmaster Tools and found out that there are 14 errors in my Structured Data (new in Webmaster Tools). I clicked the details, followed the instructions to test it in  Google Structured Data Testing Tool. I was relieved, when I saw my image snippet is still working. I tested many posts and working as well.

However, when I test my google plus, I found this error. 

No verified email verification authorship for this webpage.
Verify that the email addressdomain techchore.com this profile: Yes
Public links to contributors from Google+ profiles into techchore.com: Yes
Automatically detect the name of the author webpage: Irvin Chester.
Error: Can not match the name of the article found on the page and the name of the Google+ profile.

In my mind “Yes I found the culprit”, this is the reason why my rich snippet image isn’t showing. So I tried to correct my By-line. But, what I don’t understand, the Google Structured Data Testing Tool recognized only my first name and ignored my last name. I tried to switch my name’s position, putting my family name first in my by-line and just my family name yet to no avail.

Out of frustration.

I googled it and found some bloggers with the same problem, though  our problems weren’t identical. In their case the Structured Data Testing Tool, seems to add two extra white spaces in their hyphenated family name (mine is totally unreadable). Enough to make their names “not match” in the article and Google plus profile.

Is it a bug?

I do hope so, for sure the Webmaster tools engineers can fix it sooner.

Or it is the long awaited Google Author rank?

We all know  how Google changes its algorithm using Panda. There are rumors that Google will only display a rich image snippet, for those authors who has a higher or highest authority in their respective niche.

Well, it is still a hearsay and it’s too early to assume. Nonetheless, it could be true.

What I discovered.

Since I lost my rich image snippet, I tried to test other blogsite that used to have an image snippet too.

What I found out?

Many blogsite lost their rich snippet image also, except those blogs that has a 5 up page rank. I also discovered that Mozilla Firefox still displaying my image snippet. I just hope that when it updates, it will still show my rich image snippet.

What can we do?

For New Bloggers like me, it may sound disadvantageous. Nevertheless, let us always consider the bright side of the problem. It is an opportunity to work harder, to restore our Google authorship again.

Yes, don’t be discouraged. Perhaps this is a lesson to learn that you shouldn’t rely on Google alone. Read this from Darren Rowse “11 ways to diversify traffic sources”

Google authorship is one of the most loved by bloggers, the loss of rich snippet may reduce click through from search results but it’s not the end of the world.