Google Warns Against Deceptive Authorship Information Within Content

Google updated its helpful content search documentation to warn publishers against using deceptive authorship information, stating that fabricating creator profiles with AI-generated headshots, made-up names, or false credentials is "a form of deception" that makes a page untrustworthy to users and its automated quality systems and signals a low-quality page. The guidance, added to Google's "creating helpful content" documentation, reverses the company's earlier position that it was not worried about faked author information.

Around the same time Google updated its helpful content search documentation with defining main content and the new EOT/SA sections https://www.seroundtable.com/google-helpful-content-main-content-and-eot-sa-42218.html , Google also posted a warning to "avoid using deceptive authorship information." Google added https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content ask-who-how-why this paraphraph: However, avoid using deceptive authorship information. Fabricating creator profiles such as by using AI-generated headshots, made-up names, or false credentials to make content appear as if it was written by human experts is a form of deception. Any form of deception makes a page untrustworthy to both users and our automated quality systems, and is a signal of a low-quality page. Google previously communicated to us that it was not worried about faking author information https://www.seroundtable.com/google-spam-author-url-31913.html but I guess times have changed. Google is now saying: - Don't use deceptive authorship - Don't fake creator profiles - Don't use AI-generated headshots - Don't make up author names - Don't fake author credentials If you do these things, Google said it is a "form of deception" and makes the page "untrustworthy" and is a signal of "low-quality." Here is a screenshot of this new section: Forum discussion at X https://x.com/rustybrick/status/2107428482166734871 .