Google Adds Author URL Property to Recognise the Authors of Articles Uniquely

In a recent move, Google updated the article structured data document, giving us the provision to add author properties to the list of recommended properties we can use in Google Search. As intimated by the company, a new recommended author.url property has been added to the article structured data documentation

With the introduction of this property, we see it as a new source to generate more traffic to any particular site. Using the markup of the article writer, domains can be suggested with a similar SEO strategy as used in other cases. The author URL in the article schema is actually a link to a specific page that uniquely identifies the author of the article. To assist disambiguate the right author, Google suggests adding an author URL in the article schema, especially when multiple writers have equivalent names.

Though author URL property isn't something that's dissimilar, what's meant by new during this context is Google’s recommendation to use author URL in Article Schema which helps in disambiguating the correct and proper author of a specific article. This can help the authors get the recognition to a much-extended level and also the site flow of the particular domain.

What actually is author.url?

The author.url property is a new recommended property you can add in article structured data to your news, blog, and sports article page that can enhance your appearance in Google Search results. Typically this markup can be linked to the web page that will uniquely identify the author of the article. This link can be to the author’s social media page, an about me page, a biography page or another page that helps recognise this author. With the use of author.url, your page may be eligible for different features depending on how you code your page. Pages have been categorised into two categories viz

AMP with structured data: AMP pages with structured data can emerge in the Top stories carousel, host carousel of rich results, Visual stories, and rich results in mobile search results. These results can carry images, page logos, and other interesting search result features.

Non-AMP web page with structured data: Non-AMP pages that include Article structured data can assist Google to understand more about the web page and show better headline text, images, and date published for the article in Article rich results.

Is there any similar alternative?

Some of you already might be using the markup on your site and hence this is just going to be another added field. Google also mentioned in the help documents that “you can use the sameAs property as an alternative." As Google has the ability to differentiate and understand both sameAs and URL, Google indicates that the sameAs property can also be used as an alternative to the author URL.

Where should we redirect the link to?

Access to this tool means you have the autonomy to add any URL you want the onlookers to send to. Google in particular doesn’t specify this. Whether a social media link or a link to the author’s homepage is to be marked up isn’t explicitly stated by Google. But, it definitely seems that if the markup points to the author’s bio page on the same domain where the article is published, it might be one of the best features on Google.

Should we use it? Why?

As we know that Google’s Quality Raters seek information about the authors while manually evaluating websites, a markup to the author’s bio page looks promising. The content might be rated as ‘low’ or ‘lowest’ quality if there isn’t sufficient information about who wrote the article. Though an efficient way to communicate with Google’s quality raters would be a markup to the author’s bio page, in return will help to evaluate the content of the particular web page

Providing more information about the author betters in disambiguating the authors and is really further proof that you simply are going to be giving Google to assist it indicates that your content is of top quality.

Hence, so as for the system to be ready to find a reliable link to an author page, it might be a good choice to create one such social network profile page for the actual author on whosoever name you'd be publishing the articles. The author page would serve the purpose of being indicated as a central place. So, whenever some article is published, by this author name, you'll give the link thereto social network profile page.

What do we think?

Taking your site publishes articles, it'd benefit you to emphasise this new property to your article structured data. Assuming in case Google uses it more broadly than simply within the author knowledge panels, and to undertake to know the expertise of a selected author across multiple sites. When you have a link in an author bio on another site, it allows you to realize domain authority and traffic. Which is useful for your SEO activities. Hence, the simplest possible solution to enable Google to work out the right author is making use of this feature of adding URL markup.