Google launched author stats way back in December – an additional feature for Webmaster Tools that gaves statistics on how well a person’s content did, though of course you needed to be a verified author first. What made it unique though was that it would show you how many impressions and clicks your content received, not by a page-by-page or site-by-site basis but rather across all websites you’ve written for.
Google have, however, removed this feature. They did this very quietly without informing anyone. It had to take Glenn Gabe to report it.
Currently I’m only writing for this website; the company that I’m at. Though, for other people it gives stats on all stories written by that author, no matter what site it belongs to.
As is customary, Search Engine Land asked Google for a comment about their removal of author stats on Monday, though they have yet to respond. This could may well be a bug, though expectations out there will say that it’s much more permanent.
The author stats hadn’t been updated since July 9th, and Google also dropped author images from the Google search results – so a lot of people aren’t surprised by the removal of author stats anyway.
Again, Google has not confirmed why the tool has been removed.
Thoughts
It seems as though Google are slowly doing-away with authorship, which is a genuine shame. It’s a pretty original idea they had – it gave content producers an identity, it demonstrated that their content was legitimate and also provided a means on measuring someone’s authority on a subject.
More news from Google
Google Product Ads Get Ratings and Reviews in the U.S
Google Algorithm UPDATE – Dubbed ‘Google Pigeon’: Solves Yelp Problem and Boosts Local Directories
Matt Cutts: Google Reconsideration Requests May Be More Detailed In Future
