An article doesn't say who wrote it or when

Why it matters

An AI answer that quotes an article is better for saying who wrote it and how current it is, and the structured data an article already carries is where a machine finds that without guessing from the page's design. Google's Article documentation lists the author (a Person or Organization with a name, ideally a url), datePublished and dateModified among its recommended properties.

Google also says "there are no required properties", and that structured data "isn't required for generative AI search": nothing here keeps a page out of anything, which is why this is a notice. We only look at pages that already describe themselves as an Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting.

Sources: Google: Article structured data, Google's guide to generative AI features in Search.

How to fix it

Add the author and both dates to the article's JSON-LD:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "BlogPosting",
    "headline": "How we test link previews",
    "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ada Lovelace", "url": "https://example.com/about/ada" },
    "datePublished": "2026-10-01T09:00:00+01:00",
    "dateModified": "2026-11-02T14:30:00+00:00"
}
</script>

Examples

These are the rule's own test pages, and what it says about each. They are run on every change to the rule book.

<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"How we test link previews","datePublished":"2026-10-01"}</script>

NoticeThe page's Article structured data has no author or dateModified, so an AI answer quoting it can't say who wrote it or how current it is.

fail-no-author

<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"How we test link previews","author":[{"@id":"https://www.example.com/#/schema/person/ada"}],"datePublished":"2026-10-01","dateModified":"2026-11-02"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.example.com/#/schema/person/ada","name":"Ada Lovelace"}]}</script>

PassedThe article says who wrote it, and when it was published and last changed.

pass-author-by-reference

<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"How we test link previews","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Ada Lovelace"},"datePublished":"2026-10-01","dateModified":"2026-11-02"}</script>

PassedThe article says who wrote it, and when it was published and last changed.

pass-complete

<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","name":"Example Ltd"}</script>

PassedThe article says who wrote it, and when it was published and last changed.

pass-not-an-article