Google Adds Author URL Property for Cross-Site Author Identification
13, Sep 2021
Craig UptonGoogle has updated its Article Structured Data Help Document with the recommendation to add new author properties to the list of recommended properties you can use in Google Search.
“August 6: Added a new recommended author.url property to the Article structured data documentation. The URL property helps Google disambiguate the correct author of the article,” read the Google announcement.
The author.url is a new recommended property publishers can add to their article structured mark up as an identifier of the author; the linking in question can point to the author’s bio page, their ‘about me’ page or their social media profile. This means that any page or resource can be used to identify them.
Google stated that publishers will be able to “use the same property as an alternative.”
The new author.url property will make it easier for Google to identify and appropriately credit writers who publish across multiple websites; if a journalist or copywriter writes for more than one publication, the user of the author.url property will enable Google to attribute all of their articles to the same writer and build a better picture of their footprint.
This could potentially have significant SEO implications, in the case of authoritative and popular authors publishing across multiple platforms. If the author in question has a strong following and established track record, it is perfectly possible that all the articles attributed to them could carry more weight in SEO.
