In Google Search Central’s latest documentation update, Google added a new recommended author.URL property that website developers should use for their news, blog, and article page. This is a part of your Article structured data (schema) that can enhance the appearance of your website in Google Search results.
According to Google, this new URL property will make it easier for Google to browse the correct author of a website’s article. The author.URL property may not be new in structured data, but Google now recommends that website developers add it.
The author.URL property is part of the Article schema. So for web developers who are already using schema markup on their site, they have to add another field to include this recommended URL property. Google also noted that the sameAs property can be used by web developers as an alternative option to the author.URL property. They confirmed that the algorithm can index and read both properties when browsing and differentiating authors with the same names.
The Need for an Author Bio
Google didn’t make it clear what kind of URL the property should point to. It is possible to use an author bio in the same domain or an author bio going to their social media profile. But according to digital marketing experts, it may be best to point the URL to an author bio on the same website where the article is published.
And although the guideline didn’t state that web developers need an author bio page, having one is the best method to let Google know who that author is. The more details you can provide about the article’s author, the more Google knows that the article or content published on your website is high quality.
But, according to Google’s John Mueller, the best recommendation he can give is to link that author’s URL property to a page that links to their social media profile. This will send signals to Google to determine the correct information about the author.
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