The Google Authorship Sales Pitch
Date: July 20, 2015Category: Author: David Hall
This is the second in a series of three posts about some sales tactics that we have seen recently from a competitor. See my first post about Sleazy SEO Sales Tactics.
We had reports from two clients recently that Einstein Medical had sent them each a lengthy report titled “Website and SEO Audit,” as part of an attempt to solicit their business. The first main topic in each of these reports was the Google authorship tag, and it said that their websites were defective because they weren’t using this tag.
“Google Authorship,” they stated, “can have a significant impact on your online strategy. New content may rank higher and quicker, because it is coming from a trusted source. As the author’s reputation grows, the content as a whole may perform better. The risk of being penalized by an algorithm becomes lower.” On its second page of discussing this, it adds, “Google Authorship is an essential component of any effective online strategy.”
It then compares each website with three competitors, and then points out that our client’s website is not using this tag.
The problem is that Google authorship no longer affects any aspect of search. It used to. Google rolled out the authorship concept in 2011. For a while it seemed to be very promising. While it didn’t impact rankings, the author would get a little picture displayed next to the search results. But authorship ceased having any impact on search in August, 2014, an announcement that was accompanied by such fanfare, with so much being said about it in the SEO community, that it is difficult for me to believe that the Einstein sales team was not aware of it.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Just do a search in Google for “Google authorship.” You’ll notice as you type the search term into the search box that, before you hit “Enter,” a list of “Google Suggests” pops up below the window. The first suggestion listed is “Google authorship dead.”
What that means is that this is the most common search phrase that contains the term “Google authorship.” In other words, this isn’t some obscure, hidden detail but something major that everyone in the SEO community knows about.
Let’s hammer this point home by going further. Now hit “Enter.” Look at the number one result and read the snippet displayed with that result. It says, “Authorship markup is no longer supported in web search.” It’s not like you could miss this.
If you need more, here is a link reporting on the official announcement from Google, made August 28, 2014.
And here is the article in About.com, a respected information source of general knowledge, on the subject: Google Authorship is Dead. I cite this source because it shows that the understanding of this has passed beyond SEO specialists into the general public. The Einstein people cannot be ignorant of this.
I do need a qualifier here. While the authorship concept may be dead, it isn’t buried. There are still rumblings about Google using authorship in some way. But it doesn’t impact search, at least not now. Furthermore, the intent is that Google wants to look at the actual author who created content. Since both Einstein and Infinity Dental Web write content on behalf of authors, it would be deceptive to claim authorship on behalf of a dentist for the web pages that were written for them.
Conclusion
I imagine that this peddling of the Google authorship tag is a tactic that is used by other SEO companies and is a symptom of low ethical standards. I mentioned in my earlier post that I respect Einstein as a company that tries to build quality websites with original content. So this activity by their sales team seems to be an anomaly. Still, I don’t want to dismiss the seriousness of this issue. Einstein Medical needs to rein in their sales team so that they embrace the same strong ethical standards upon which the rest of the company is founded.
Read the final post in this three-post series:
Is there a 500-word rule for content?
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