{"id":14678,"date":"2013-04-12T09:13:16","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T13:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=14678"},"modified":"2013-12-04T21:16:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T01:16:20","slug":"authorship-brownouts-due-to-facerank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/12\/authorship-brownouts-due-to-facerank\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorship Brownouts Due to “FaceRank”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>Several months ago my author photo stopped showing on my articles in the Google search results. I double checked all of my settings several times and they appeared correct. \u00a0I didn’t really have time to fool with it until the end of last month when I reached out to Matt McGee<\/a>, AJ Kohn<\/a> and Aaron Weiche<\/a> for guidance. The bottom line? Google Authorship apparently has some sort of face recognition filter (or as Aaron Weiche called it: FaceRank) that pulls down images it doesn’t like.<\/p>\n

Who would have guessed?\u00a0Here is the email thread between us:<\/p>\n

March 29<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Me<\/b>
\n<\/b>1)My author photo used to show on my article like this one:\u00a0web equity<\/a>
\n2)It no longer does
\n3)It tests<\/a> properly on the rich snippet tool
\n4)Do I need to implement publisher as well? something else?<\/p>\n

AJ Kohn<\/b>
\nYou’re probably not doing anything wrong. I’ve had a number of folks getting Authorship brownouts lately. I’m trying to follow-up with the team to see if there’s a bug in the presentation layer (which has happened repeatedly).<\/p>\n

It could be the face recognition if you’re not getting Authorship on any of your posts. In all, the mark-up is very brittle right now as Google tries to find more and more ways to extend Authorship (aka – indirect Authorship) while preserving accuracy.<\/p>\n

Matt McGee<\/b>
\nTwo possibilities:<\/p>\n

1) Google doesn’t like your profile photo anymore.
\n2) Google is just being its normal wishy-washy self about authorship.<\/p>\n

Go in to Google+ and change your profile photo to something that shows you facing forward (like a mugshot) and maybe even in color. If it likes your new image better, you should see it start to show in search results again almost immediately, but not as comprehensively as before (at first).<\/p>\n

I lost authorship a couple months ago when Google suddenly decided it didn’t like my half-face avatar in its search results. Ergo I know have the boring full-face on Google+.<\/p>\n

If changing your photo doesn’t work, this is just Google being wishy-washy. It’s pretty common for authorship to come and go in my experience,<\/p>\n

Aaron Wieche<\/b>
\nSeriously? We now have to think about “Face Rank”!!!??!<\/p>\n

March 31<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Me<\/b>
\nI switched to a color full frontal image. Maybe just act of switching toggles their collective conscious. Will let you know.<\/p>\n

AJ Kohn<\/b>
\nAgreed. Poking the bear to make it stir and reevaluate is always a good idea in these instances.<\/p>\n

April 2<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Me<\/b>
\nThe change from my beloved B & W photo to a color one has made the difference. Matt (as usual) seems to have identified what the issue was\u2026 a photo that the software didn’t like<\/p>\n

April 12<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Me<\/b>
\nOK. McGee nailed it. I changed out my photo several times over the past week with frontal color photos & all was good for a number of days. Changed it yesterday afternoon (4\/11) to my b & w, slightly side view photo and poof its gone as of this morning.<\/p>\n

Update April 12 10:00 pm<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I replaced the B&W photo at about 9:00 am this morning with my color profile photo and it is now showing 12 hours later.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So the question remains. Why is one photo NOT acceptable to Google and other photos are?\"two-author-images\"<\/a><\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

Google was kind enough to notify me that I had qualified with my B & W photo last fall. But they did not have the courtesy of doing so when they suddenly stopped showing my photo. What SMB has time for these sort of horse crap<\/del> er, outcomes? In fact what normal webmaster does?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several months ago my author photo stopped showing on my articles in the Google search results. I double checked all of my settings several times and they appeared correct. \u00a0I didn’t really have time to fool with it until the end of last month when I reached out to Matt McGee, AJ Kohn and Aaron …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-plus","category-whats-new-important"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t