In another nod to the influence of mobile, Google has dropped the profile photos and circle count from authorship. The reason for the change? According to Google’s John Mueller’s post on June 25, they have been trying to clean up the visual design and create a better mobile experience. “We’re simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results,” Mueller said.

According to Mueller tests have shown removal of profile photos has not impacted the click through behavior. It will be interesting to see if that holds true as if is counter to the understanding the photos have a lot of pull in conversion and click through rates.

This comes on the heels of another significant change to Google’s authorship. Google is getting a bit pickier on what authors they consider worthy of Google’s authorship designation. A new algorithm rolled out in mid-December places more emphasis on high quality content when it comes to assigning authorship. They are going for quality over quality which lead to a significant drop in searches displaying the authorship mark-up.

The main take away is yet another reminder to keep the mobile user experience top of mind and continue to focus on high quality content over volume in order to build up authorship.