Are Social tags beyond Structured Data still required?

[RosemaryB]

Hello:  I have a client that has Structured data set up correctly to include their social profiles for FB, Twitter, and Google+.   But when I run an audit tool it tells me that they need  < re=Publisher > tag for Google Plus.

My understanding is that we don't need any additional code beyond the Structured Data tags.  Is that correct?

Thank you

Rosemary

[GlobeRunner]

When it comes to Google Plus in particular, we do recommend that the authorship and publishership tags be used, as there has been mentions by Google reps in the past that those could come back at some point. We don't know if Google is still using Google Authorship internally as a search engine ranking signal of some type even though it isn't being promoted publicly. The same goes for Google Publishership, as well.

If it requires a lot of extra time coding this into the site then you might consider not including it--but we do recommend that it still be included, especially since it may make a comeback at some point.