Disappearing Authorship Credits in GWT

[Sally Stitts]

A few months ago, I had GWT acknowledgment for 200 pages on one site. I thought (knew) that was low.

So, I added authorship to 30 more pages. Over a few days, GWT gave me credit for 230. That seemed just right.

Then, over the next few weeks, it dropped. 228, 225, 222, 218 and now today, 211. What's going on? Why do you lose credit for authorship over time? This is exactly as I expected, since I started out with over 300.

Is some special Google massage required to get them to report the ACTUAL AND TRUE number? Please tell me what it is. I am about ready to dump it all, and never look back. We spend hours and jump through their hoops, then get kicked in the teeth. Why bother?

[lucy24]

:: detour to pore over this week's tables ::

OK. I'm going to go way out on a limb here:

Authorship Stats are an impenetrable black mystery, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying in their teeth.

On author side: twelve listed pages-- including one e-book which I clearly and unambiguously say was NOT written by me.

On search side, Pages tab selected, default www filter: a much longer list, not beginning with the same twelve-- and showing significantly higher numbers (impressions and clicks) for those twelve when they do appear.

Half of the 12 pages listed in the Author table don't even show up in the first 25 overall top pages. A couple of them may not be listed at all. (Does the list go all the way to the end if you scroll far enough? I checked once but can't remember.)

And that's not even getting into the question of why the Authors table is so bizarrely formatted that my default browser width leaves only about two ems for the page title-- including protocol-plus-domain (why? isn't this a site-specific function?). This is apparently to allow for numbers in the trillions in each of the other four columns, including the ones for percentage and position (max four characters each).

If I had to pick just one question:

Why are the numbers different? I mean, a page is a page, right? Do some search terms trigger a picture while others don't, and that's what they're counting? If so, it would be nice of them to drop a hint. The Authors table doesn't seem to have an option for showing search terms the way the usual Pages table does, so no help there.

[Sally Stitts]

Do some search terms trigger a picture while others don't, and that's what they're counting?

Ahh, ha-ha-ha-ha.

Picture? I have never, ever, ever, ever seen my photo attached in the SERPs. They can send me 10s of thousands impressions a day, and pay me big money each month, but they can never show my photo? Google is sooooooooooo bizarre. Inexplicable. Opaque. Illogical. Non-communicative.

The frustration of endless hoop-jumping to no avail is taking its toll.

[lucy24]

My sole consolation is that a while back I finally moved all the footer stuff into include files. So now when they redesign the hoop I only have to change one file. Two if you count the ebooksfooter (which has a different copyright line). Oh, and the silentfooter, which reads a cookie before drawing the page. And the errorfooter. That's different too. And I kinda think I've got a ...

Anyway. Not several hundred files, is the point I'm trying to make. I could use some exercise, but not that kind. Most likely I'll snag my toe in the hoop and fall and break my nose.

A couple of the pages listed under Authors get, at a generous estimate, three human visitors a month. So are they showing up in searches with a portrait that makes people less likely to click?

[aakk9999]

I noticed that:

a) If you are eCom business and no. 1 in SERPs, authorship photo decreases number of clicks (maybe seems less professional)

b) If you are at the bottom of the page, authorship photo will increase CTR a bit

We have removed authorship photo from all eCom pages and only left it on "About us" page.

It could be (and probably is) different for blogs and news sites.