AI Visibility pillar / check author-entity
Article authors: visible byline and author markup that agree
On article pages only, we check that a visible byline and the structured data author exist, name the same person, and follow Google's author markup best practices. Homepages and service pages are not measured here.
By Shimon Carroll, Founder, SEO for AI Agents · Last updated
What this check measures
Whether the page is an article (Article or BlogPosting markup, an article path, or a long <article> element). On articles: the visible byline (a rel=author link, an itemprop author, a byline element, or a "By {name}" line), every author in the JSON-LD with its type, name, url and sameAs, whether author.name carries anything besides the name, and whether the byline and the markup name the same person.
Why it matters
Google's author markup best practices say the author should be a Person or Organization, that author.name should contain only the author's name with no job title, honorific, publisher name or introductory words, that each author gets their own author field, and that url or sameAs helps Google tell authors apart. Google's helpful content guidance asks whether it is clear who created the content. This is our trust methodology, not a Google ranking rule.
How we score it
An article with no byline and no author markup is MEDIUM (editorial). A broken Google author rule is LOW and measured. A byline and markup that disagree, markup with no visible byline, or a byline with no markup is LOW (editorial). Editorial findings never take the first action-plan slot while a measured defect exists.
Confidence-flag rules
MEDIUM. Byline detection reads common byline patterns; the evidence shows what we found.
Common mistakes
- "Jane Doe, CPA" or "Dr. Jane Doe" in author.name.
- Two authors in one author name.
- A byline in an image.
- Author markup naming the company while the byline names a person.
How to fix it
Show a "By {name}" byline linked to an author bio, and add an author Person with only the name in author.name and a url to the Article JSON-LD. Put titles in jobTitle and honorifics in honorificPrefix or honorificSuffix.
Primary sources
Changelog
- · Applies only to article-like pages; homepages are covered by people-entity-presence. sameAs is no longer required: Google accepts url or sameAs. A broken published rule (a job title or honorific in author.name, two authors in one field, a type other than Person or Organization) is a measured finding; the rest is editorial.