Do your articles and blog posts tell AI who wrote them and when?
Confirms each editorial page carries author, publisher, dates, headline, and image as structured data.
What this signal tests
We look at your articles, blog posts, and news pages for an Article block in JSON-LD format that includes five core facts: the headline, when it was first published, when it was last updated, who wrote it, who published it, and a representative image. These fields together are what AI tools use to decide whether to cite the article.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
AI search relies heavily on trust signals when choosing which source to quote. Explicit author and publisher information lets the AI tie your content to identifiable people and organisations, which makes it far more likely to be cited rather than treated as anonymous web content. Sites without this metadata are often skipped in favour of competitors that supply it. The dates matter independently. AI tools rank fresher content higher for time-sensitive topics, and they rely on the dateModified field to decide what counts as fresh. Without machine-readable dates, recent articles can be quietly aged out of consideration even when they are the most current source available.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| All five core fields present. |
How we test it
We fetch a sample of your article URLs and parse their JSON-LD. We check the type is Article, NewsArticle, or BlogPosting, and we confirm all five core fields are present and well-formed. The author and publisher must be objects with at least a name, not bare strings. Image must be a working URL. Dates must parse as proper datetimes, not free text like Last Tuesday.
Show technical detection method
On article URLs: @type Article/NewsArticle/BlogPosting with all five core fields present.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Identify your article templates: blog post, news article, long-form guide, case study. Each needs the Article block, but you only need to update the template, not every individual post.
- Add a JSON-LD block with type Article (or NewsArticle for news, BlogPosting for blogs) that pulls headline, publish date, modified date, author, publisher, and image from your CMS fields.
- Make sure the author field is an object with @type Person and a name property, not just a string. The publisher should be an Organization with a name and a logo image.
- Confirm dates are emitted in ISO 8601 format including a timezone offset, not as locally formatted strings such as May 21, 2026.
- Validate a representative URL in Google's Rich Results Test under the Article test type. It will list any missing or malformed fields.
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | high |
| Category | Structured Data |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Article, NewsArticle, and BlogPosting?
They are three subtypes of the same idea. Use NewsArticle for journalism and time-sensitive reporting, BlogPosting for editorial blog content, and plain Article for everything else such as guides and explainers. Choosing the right subtype helps AI tools route your content to the right answer category.
Does my author field need a real person, or can it be the company?
Either is valid. A real person is stronger for AI trust because the AI can follow sameAs links to LinkedIn or other authoritative profiles. If a single person did not author the piece, an Organization is fine, but a named editor or contributor will get more credit in AI citations.
How is this different from a byline at the top of the article?
A visible byline is for humans; Article schema is the machine-readable version of the same information. Both should agree. AI tools cross-check structured data against visible content, and pages where the schema author does not match the visible byline are sometimes downweighted as untrustworthy.
Do I need to update dateModified every time I edit an article?
Yes, when the edit is substantive. Fixing a typo does not warrant a dateModified bump, but rewriting a section, updating figures, or adding new findings does. Honest dateModified values build trust over time; inflating them on trivial edits is detectable and erodes trust.
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