SEOLZ

Article missing author

Moderate effort

Found on 2% of audited stores.

Add a structured-data author field (schema.org Person) to every article and blog post so AI engines and search crawlers can verify who wrote the content.

What it is

When you publish a blog post, buying guide, or any editorial article on your store, search engines and AI-powered answer engines look for a machine-readable "author" signal in your page's structured data (JSON-LD). If your page's schema markup uses a generic WebPage or Article type but omits an "author" property pointing to a real Person, crawlers cannot confirm who wrote the content. Adding an "author" with schema.org's Person type — ideally with a "sameAs" link to the author's public profile (LinkedIn, a personal site, etc.) — tells every engine exactly who the human expert behind the content is.

Why it matters

Google's quality systems and AI answer engines (like Google SGE, Bing Copilot, and ChatGPT search) heavily weight E-E-A-T signals — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — when deciding which content to surface in answers and rich results. A missing author is a direct E-E-A-T gap: your well-researched buying guide or how-to article may rank and get cited less than a competitor's page that clearly names its author. For ecommerce stores, this affects organic traffic to content that drives top-of-funnel discovery and ultimately conversions. Fixing this is a low-effort change that can meaningfully improve how both Google and AI engines treat your editorial content.

How to fix it

  1. Identify every page on your store that contains editorial content — blog posts, buying guides, how-to articles, and comparison pages.
  2. Open (or create) the JSON-LD structured data block for each page. It should use @type: 'Article', 'BlogPosting', or 'NewsArticle' (not just 'WebPage').
  3. Inside the JSON-LD object, add an 'author' property whose value is an object with '@type': 'Person', 'name': the author's full name, and optionally 'url' and 'sameAs' pointing to a trusted public profile (e.g. LinkedIn, a personal website, or an About page on your store).
  4. If multiple authors contribute to your store's content, create a consistent author entity for each one and reuse it across their posts.
  5. After adding the markup, paste the page URL into Google's Rich Results Test to confirm the author field is parsed correctly and shows no errors.
  6. Republish or redeploy the page so the updated structured data is live for crawlers to index.
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BlogPosting",
  "headline": "Your Article Title",
  "datePublished": "2024-06-01",
  "dateModified": "2024-06-15",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Jane Smith",
    "url": "https://yourstore.com/about/jane-smith",
    "sameAs": [
      "https://www.linkedin.com/in/janesmith",
      "https://twitter.com/janesmith"
    ]
  },
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Your Store Name",
    "logo": {
      "@type": "ImageObject",
      "url": "https://yourstore.com/logo.png"
    }
  }
}

Fix it on your platform

Pick your platform for the exact steps.

How to fix article missing author on Shopify
  1. Go to Online Store → Themes → click 'Edit code' on your active theme.
  2. Open the template file that renders blog posts — typically 'templates/article.liquid' or a section like 'sections/article-template.liquid'.
  3. Locate the existing JSON-LD <script> block (or add one just before </body>).
  4. Insert or update the 'author' property inside the Article/BlogPosting object, using Liquid variables: '"name": "{{ article.author }}"'.
  5. For a sameAs link, add a metafield to the Author (Staff Account) or use a blog article metafield — set it in Settings → Custom data → Articles, then reference it as '{{ article.metafields.custom.author_profile_url }}'.
  6. Save, then test the live article URL in Google's Rich Results Test.
Full Shopify guide →Official Shopify docs ↗
How to fix article missing author on WooCommerce
  1. Install the free 'Yoast SEO' or 'Rank Math SEO' plugin if not already active.
  2. For Yoast SEO: go to SEO → Search Appearance → Content Types → Posts, and ensure 'Show posts in search results' is on; then under each post's Yoast sidebar panel, the author is pulled from the WordPress post author automatically.
  3. To enrich the author entity, go to Users → (Author's profile) and fill in the 'Biographical Info' and the 'Website' field; Yoast will include these in the Person schema.
  4. For Rank Math: go to Rank Math → Titles & Meta → Posts, set 'Structured Data Type' to 'Article' or 'BlogPosting'; author data is pulled from the WordPress user profile automatically.
  5. To add sameAs links for authors, use Rank Math's 'Local SEO' module or a dedicated plugin like 'Schema Pro', which lets you map author social profiles to sameAs.
  6. Verify with Google's Rich Results Test on a live post URL.
Full WooCommerce guide →Official WooCommerce docs ↗
How to fix article missing author on BigCommerce
  1. Go to Storefront → Script Manager and create a new script scoped to 'All Pages' or target specific blog page templates.
  2. Paste your JSON-LD BlogPosting block (see code example above) as a <script type='application/ld+json'> tag, filling author name and sameAs statically or via Handlebars variables available in the Stencil theme (e.g. {{blog.post.author}}).
  3. Alternatively, edit the blog post template directly: open Storefront → My Themes → Edit Theme Files → templates/pages/blog-post.html and insert the JSON-LD block.
  4. Use BigCommerce custom fields or the blog post 'Author' metadata field to supply the author name dynamically.
  5. Test the updated page in Google's Rich Results Test.
Full BigCommerce guide →Official BigCommerce docs ↗
How to fix article missing author on Wix
  1. In your Wix dashboard, open the Blog app and navigate to a blog post in the editor.
  2. Wix automatically adds basic Article structured data, but to extend it with a richer author entity, go to the Wix Blog Settings → SEO tab and ensure the post author's display name matches the real author.
  3. For the author profile/sameAs field, use Wix's 'Advanced SEO' panel (available in site settings): open Settings → SEO → Structured Data Markup and add a custom JSON-LD snippet for blog post pages.
  4. In the custom JSON-LD snippet, add the 'author' Person object with 'name' and 'sameAs' (paste the code example above, replacing values).
  5. Save and publish, then verify with Google's Rich Results Test.
Full Wix guide →Official Wix docs ↗
How to fix article missing author on Squarespace
  1. Squarespace injects some structured data automatically, but author sameAs is not included by default.
  2. Go to Website → Pages → select your Blog page → Settings (gear icon) → Blog Post settings and ensure Author is set to a real user with a complete profile.
  3. To inject a custom JSON-LD author block, go to Settings → Advanced → Code Injection and paste a <script type='application/ld+json'> block in the 'Page Header' field. For blog-post-specific injection, open the individual post editor → post settings → Advanced → Post Header Code Injection.
  4. Use static values for the author name and sameAs URLs in the snippet (Squarespace does not expose blog author variables in header injection).
  5. Save and preview, then test with Google's Rich Results Test.
Full Squarespace guide →Official Squarespace docs ↗
How to fix article missing author on Webflow
  1. Open your Webflow project and navigate to the CMS → Blog Posts collection.
  2. Add a plain-text field called 'Author Name' and a URL field called 'Author Profile URL' (for sameAs) if they don't exist; populate them for all posts.
  3. Open the Designer, select the Blog Post template page, and add an 'Embed' element (HTML Embed) just before the closing </body> tag.
  4. Paste the JSON-LD code example into the embed, replacing static values with Webflow CMS dynamic bindings: use the + button to bind 'Author Name' and 'Author Profile URL' fields into the JSON string.
  5. Publish the site and test a live blog post URL in Google's Rich Results Test.
Full Webflow guide →Official Webflow docs ↗
How to fix article missing author on Adobe Commerce (Magento)
  1. If you use a blog extension (e.g. Magefan Blog, Aheadworks Blog, or Mirasvit Blog), locate the blog post view template — typically at app/design/frontend/<Vendor>/<theme>/Magefan_Blog/templates/post/view.phtml or the equivalent for your extension.
  2. Add a <script type='application/ld+json'> block inside that template that outputs an Article/BlogPosting schema with the 'author' Person object.
  3. Pull the author name from the post's author entity using the extension's available PHP/template variables (e.g. $post->getAuthor()->getName() in Magefan Blog).
  4. For sameAs, add a custom author attribute in the blog extension's admin (Magefan: Content → Blog → Authors → edit author → add Social URL field), then output it in the template.
  5. Run bin/magento cache:flush after saving, then verify with Google's Rich Results Test.
Full Adobe Commerce (Magento) guide →Official Adobe Commerce (Magento) docs ↗

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Frequently asked questions

What is Article missing author?

When you publish a blog post, buying guide, or any editorial article on your store, search engines and AI-powered answer engines look for a machine-readable "author" signal in your page's structured data (JSON-LD). If your page's schema markup uses a generic WebPage or Article type but omits an "author" property pointing to a real Person, crawlers cannot confirm who wrote the content. Adding an "author" with schema.org's Person type — ideally with a "sameAs" link to the author's public profile (LinkedIn, a personal site, etc.) — tells every engine exactly who the human expert behind the content is.

Why does article missing author matter?

Google's quality systems and AI answer engines (like Google SGE, Bing Copilot, and ChatGPT search) heavily weight E-E-A-T signals — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — when deciding which content to surface in answers and rich results. A missing author is a direct E-E-A-T gap: your well-researched buying guide or how-to article may rank and get cited less than a competitor's page that clearly names its author. For ecommerce stores, this affects organic traffic to content that drives top-of-funnel discovery and ultimately conversions. Fixing this is a low-effort change that can meaningfully improve how both Google and AI engines treat your editorial content.

How do I fix article missing author?

Add a structured-data author field (schema.org Person) to every article and blog post so AI engines and search crawlers can verify who wrote the content.

Authoritative references

Related Answer Engine Optimization issues