Schema Markup removes Google Authorship in SERPS

Recently I've been playing around with adding Schema Markup to enhance certain posts on this blog.  Something I've just noticed and found out is that Schema Markup removes Google Authorship in Google's Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

In this picture you can see a NameCheap Review I posted awhile ago if you do a search for “NameCheap Review” in Google's SERPS.  I wanted to see if implementing Schema markup would improve my Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings and give me higher Click-Through-Rates (CTR) to my sites.

schema markup removes google authorship

Indeed the Schema markup I put on the page was being picked up and read by Google but it was no longer showing my Google Authorship picture profile next to the post.  This means Google is cherry picking what Rich Snippet markup they feel is most relevant to show in a search query.  This kind of makes sense but I thought Google wanted to show as much Rich Snippets to a user before they click on a website.  They don't want to show the Schema markup (star ratings) along with the Google Authorship picture?

The fact that Schema Markup removes Google Authorship in the SERPs is just plain annoying and stupid in my opinion.  They make a big friggin deal about implementing Schema but for reviews if it is going to override your Google+ picture, why would put Schema data in a review post?

Since I hadn't ever seen anyone else use Schema data and Google Authorship in the Google's SERPS when doing searches before I guess I shouldn't be surprised it didn't work.  The thing is if it is the choice between Schema markup in a review and having Google display my Google+ Authorship profile, you'd go with the picture everytime.  It creates more trust and I almost guarantee it will give you better CTRs to your websites.

Here is a post in Google's SERPS about Google celebrating 10 Years of Google Adsense.  You can see my Google Authorship markup .

google adsense 10 years

If Google wants to improve search quality and help people find “High quality content” (still trying to figure what the fuck that means  to Google!) they should allow show both Schema data and Google Authorship in review posts.  I am tired of finding this shit out the hard way!

Let's hear from readers of my blog since I know I have some from my analytics.  Since Schema Markup removes Google Authorship would this encourage or discourage you from using it in posts on your blog and sites?  Does Google make you angry sometimes since they are not always clear about these things?

UPDATE: Some people have asked me how to fix Schema data and markup from showing up in Google SERPS for you websites content and posts.  It's simple, just remove all the Schema markup on pages and posts you don't want it showing up on in SERPs.  It might take Google a few days to over a week to update and show your Google+ authorship picture.

I removed Schema markup from this websites as it doesn't make sense to have it here.  If this was a review or ratings site it probably would be a good idea to have Schema data implemented on pages.

Free Keyword Rank Checker (Google Webmaster Tools)

Did you know that Google Webmaster Tools provides a Free Keyword Rank Checker? Most people don't and here is how to access the data if you are not familiar.  I am assuming you already have Google Analytics installed on your website along with Google Webmaster Tools.  If not, you will not be able to view this keyword ranking data.

  1. Log into Google Webmaster Tools
  2. On the left click “Search Traffic”
  3. Under “Search Traffic” in the dropdown menu then click “Search Queries”
  4. Scroll down and you will see Impressions, Clicks, CTR (Click Through Rate), and Average position.

The important metric you want to think about are your CTRs and your Average position.  CTR means the amount of people clicking through to your website compared to how many times someone has seen it come up in a Google SERPS (search engine ranking pages).  Impressions means how many times your articles and posts get viewed in the Google's SERPS.  (It doesn't track other search engines, not that you should really care though.)

free keyword rank checker What's great about this data is that it is obviously very useful but it is also free.  The reason I am mentioning the SEO (search engine optimization) keyword tracking in Google Webmaster Tools is that a lot of people are spending $30 bucks a month or more on sites and software that do this.  If you are an SEO firm or company that is handling a lots of client's websites then it is definitely useful, but pricey.  Tracking keywords in the SERPS (search engine results page) is how these companies make money, so it only makes sense to want to track client's sites carefully.

Using an external keyword rank checker and tracking tool in my opinion is not necessary for smaller sites and bloggers in my opinion. The reality is if you are not ranking for certain terms, you can work on it, but it will be hard to go up against people with better SEO knowledge and experience.

For most using the free rank checker data within Google Webmaster Tools is going to work just fine for tracking keywords.  If you agree, disagree, or want to recommend a SEO rank checker that you use please let me know.

Does site Downtime hurt Search Engine Rankings?

search engine rankings

Does site downtime hurt Search Engine rankings? ”

This is a question that is hotly debated by webmasters, search engine optimization specialists, bloggers, hosting companies, etc.  A lot of people say that a little bit of downtime, say 20 minutes, in a day, can hurt SERPS (search engine results page) for your website.  Others say that you can have a little bit of downtime here and there and it will not matter much.

Well this question was touched on in one of a Google Webmaster Help videos with Matt Cutts recently. Check it out and the question that was asked.

I got a “Googlebot can't access your site” message in Webmaster Tools from my host being down for a day. Does it affect my rankings when this happens?
Sally

Matt Cutts initial response to this question was,

“Well if it is just for a 1 day you should be in pretty good shape. If your host is down for 2 weeks then there is a better indicator that the website is down and we don't want to send users to a website that is actually down but we do try to compensate for websites that are transiently or sporadically down.  We make a few allowances and we try to comeback 24 hours later… So it is just a short period of downtime I wouldn't really worry about that.”

While I mostly agree with what he said in the video, and after explaining that the Googlebot was having trouble crawling sites a few weeks ago, Matt Cutts commented, “If it is just 24 hours I really wouldn't stress about that very much.”

Well… a friend of mine recently had his websites on a JustHost dedicated server and it went down for 1 day.  He told me hasn't been able to get back his SERP rankings since the downtime.  Despite what was said you should realize downtime can hurt your search engine rankings in Google.  I've heard this from a number of experienced webmasters.

However, I want people to think about how the Googlebot spider works when indexing pages.  I will not go into everything as it would take too long to explain but just do a quick overview.

When you do a Google search you are not actually searching the web instantly, like a lot of people assume, but you are actually searching Google's stored version of the web.  For instance when this article was first posted it DID NOT immediately get indexed by Google and was searchable. Why?  While this blog gets ok traffic my current pagerank is 3, which is decent but not too high.  Sites that post content more frequently and that have a higher pagerank are going to get crawled before mine.  Websites like FoxNews and NY Times will get crawled first since they have a higher pagerank, more content, and are in Google News.

So if my website was down for say 1 hour it is actually pretty possible that Google will not even see my website is down since the Googlebot may not crawl it.  While Google is really good about crawling new webpages very fast these days they can't get to every new piece of content posted simultaneously.  If you were running FoxNews and had downtime 24 hours that would be a much bigger deal since they get millions of visitors a day and the Googlebot expects there to be content frequently.

So my answers to the question “Does site downtime hurt Search Engine rankings?” would generally be the same as Cutts.  I caution anyone asking this question to consider the type of website you are running, how much traffic you get, and your user's expectations which will influence Google's.  Choosing a reliable web hosting company is very important if you want good uptime and don't want to have to worry about websites going down.  I prefer Site5 and you can read my Site5 review to get a better idea about their web hosting services.

So that is my professional opinion on this topic of site downtime and search engine rankings.  By the way if you want to monitor website downtime and uptime I highly recommend a service called Uptime Robot.  It will ping your website every 5 minutes to see if it is up and if it isn't you can get a text message, email, or RSS feed notification.  Best part about Uptime Robot is that it is completely free website monitoring service.

Has website downtime ever hurt or affected your search engine rankings?  Have you ever had your website hosted with a hosting company that had frequent downtime?  Share your experiences below as I am sure a lot of people have something to say about this.