Are your article authors described as real, linkable people rather than text strings?
Checks that author fields point to identifiable people with verifiable profiles AI can follow.
What this signal tests
We check whether your articles list their author as a structured entity with at least a name, and ideally one or more sameAs links to authoritative profiles such as LinkedIn, ORCID, Wikipedia, or Wikidata. A bare text string like By Jane Smith is not enough; AI tools cannot tell which Jane Smith you mean without an identifier.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
AI search engines now weigh author expertise heavily. When deciding which page to cite for a medical, legal, or technical question, they prefer content written by people whose credentials can be verified. A linkable author profile is the cheapest, clearest expertise signal you can provide, and it directly improves your citation rate in answer engines. This is different from the old idea of Google Authorship. The sameAs links here are not about a single platform; they are about giving AI tools enough information to disambiguate your author from every other person with the same name, and to follow the trail to public credentials. Without that disambiguation, your most credible content reads to AI as if it was written by a stranger.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| author is Person/Organization object with name and at least one sameAs URL. |
How we test it
We parse the author field of every Article block in your JSON-LD. We confirm it is an object with a type of Person or Organization and a name, not a free-text string. We then look for a sameAs property listing one or more URLs to recognised profile sites. The signal passes when name is present; full credit requires at least one valid sameAs link.
Show technical detection method
Article.author is object with @type and name (not bare string); bonus for sameAs.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Audit your CMS author profiles. For each author who appears on your site, gather their LinkedIn URL, ORCID identifier (if academic), Wikipedia or Wikidata page (if applicable), and any other authoritative profile such as a personal site or industry registry.
- Update your author template so author fields in JSON-LD emit as an object with @type Person, a name, a url to the author's bio page on your site, and a sameAs array of those external profile links.
- If authors do not yet have a LinkedIn or equivalent presence, encourage them to create one. A single authoritative external profile is enough to pass the signal; more is better.
- Replace any remaining string author values (common in older posts) with the structured object. Most CMS platforms can backfill this with a single migration script.
- Validate by sampling articles in Google's Rich Results Test. Sameworks of expertise verification will not be flagged as errors, but their absence is a missed opportunity.
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | high |
| Category | Structured Data |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
What if my authors are guest contributors with no public profile?
Even a brief author bio page on your own site, linked via the url property, counts as a base level of identity. Adding any single external profile (LinkedIn is easiest) lifts the page to full credit. The point is uniqueness; the AI just needs to know which person you mean.
Is it bad to list the company as author instead of an individual?
Not bad, but weaker. An Organization author is acceptable and passes the signal, but AI tools give stronger expertise credit to identifiable individuals. Reserve Organization authors for genuinely collective content such as company announcements; use Person for anything written from a perspective.
Do the sameAs URLs need to be on specific sites?
No specific site is required. Anything where the author's identity is publicly verifiable counts: LinkedIn, ORCID for researchers, GitHub for engineers, professional licensing registries, Wikipedia, Wikidata, or a personal domain that the author clearly controls. Avoid social profiles that anyone could create anonymously.
Will this leak personal information about my authors?
No more than is already public on their LinkedIn or equivalent profile. You are only declaring the link between your site and a profile they have already chosen to publish. If an author prefers privacy, you can link to an internal bio page only and skip external sameAs entries.
Run your own scan
Run a free scan and see how your site grades across all 155 AI-readiness signals.