Google has just announced a shakeup in how authors are displayed when attached to search results. The Authorship results, which feature an author’s Google+ profile pic, Google+ circle count, and a link to their profile are about to look a lot different. Simpler, actually.
Google is doing away with authors’ profile photos and circle counts in authorship results. Google’s John Mueller says that it’s part of a cleanup to create “a better mobile experience and a more consistent design across devices.” The changes will take place on both mobile and desktop, however.
Results will still show a byline and contain a link to the authors’ Google+ profile.
That Mueller would say that “our experiments indicate that click-through behavior on this new less-cluttered design is similar to the previous one” is rather interesting, since that pretty much contradicts one of the main reasons Google began displaying Google+ info in search results in the first place.
This appears to be a gradual rollout takeaway, as photos and circle counts are still visible in some search results
