Recently Google’s John Mueller was asked whether an author’s reputation affects the website’s ranking, as concerns arose from people who used other author’s on their sites. Google states that this doesn’t matter in the way that algorithms check for popularity and ranking. If an author is removed by a website, that is the choice of the website if the author’s no longer want that association. Removal of an author would just be looked at as an update to a site.
Key Takeaways:
- You don’t need to concern yourself with an author’s reputation when ranking websites because they may be new or go into bad standing.
- Website directors have raised concerns that the changing views on an author would change website rankings; this was recently brought to Google as a concern.
- You have every right to remove an author from your website because you choose to no longer be associated with them, but this will not change your website ranking.
“However, if you want to remove an author from your website because you no longer want to be associated with them for whatever reason, then that would be treated like any other organic site change.”