Issue 70

This issue checks whether blog post pages include an author biography or author information to establish content credibility and trust (E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).

A page passes this check if:

• It's a blog post or article page
• It has a visible author biography section (author name, bio text, or credentials)
• OR it has structured data (Schema.org) that identifies the author with a name and description

Example of passing implementation

<article>
  <h1>How to Improve Your SEO</h1>
  <p>By <strong>Jane Smith</strong></p>
  <div class="author-bio">
    <p>Jane Smith is a Senior SEO Specialist with 10 years of experience...</p>
  </div>
</article>

<!-- With Schema.org markup -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "BlogPosting",
    "author": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Jane Smith",
      "description": "Senior SEO Specialist with 10 years of experience"
    }
  }
</script>

Example of failing implementation

<article>
  <h1>How to Improve Your SEO</h1>
  <p>Posted on January 1, 2024</p>
  <!-- No author information -->
</article>

Important note

This check only applies to blog posts and articles, not to homepage, contact pages, or product pages.

Having author information matters for:

• Rankings: Google's E-E-A-T guidelines emphasize author expertise as a ranking factor, especially for "Your Money Your Life" (YMYL) content (health, finance, legal topics)
• Trust: Users trust content more when they know who wrote it and their qualifications
• Indexability: Search engines use author information to understand content credibility and authority
• User experience: Readers can evaluate whether the author is qualified to write on the topic

Impact on SEO health score

Resolving this issue improves your SEO health score by establishing content credibility and demonstrating expertise to both users and search engines.

Step 1: Add an author bio section

Add an author bio section to your blog posts:

• Place it at the end of the article or near the byline
• Include the author's full name
• Write a brief professional biography (2-3 sentences minimum)
• Add links to their professional profiles (LinkedIn, personal website)
• Use semantic class names like class="author-bio" or id="author-biography"

Step 2: Add structured data (Schema.org)

Add structured data to your blog posts:

• Include author information in your JSON-LD markup
• Link your BlogPosting or Article schema to a Person object
• Include name, description, and sameAs (links to profiles) properties

Step 3: Ensure content is visible to search engines

Make sure author information is accessible:

• Don't load author bios via JavaScript after page load
• Make sure the author information is in the initial HTML response
• Use server-side rendering (SSR) if using JavaScript frameworks

Example fix

<!-- Before: No author info -->
<article>
  <h1>SEO Tips</h1>
  <p>Tips for better SEO...</p>
</article>

<!-- After: With author bio -->
<article>
  <h1>SEO Tips</h1>
  <p>By <strong>John Doe</strong></p>
  <p>Tips for better SEO...</p>
  <div class="author-bio">
    <h3>About the Author</h3>
    <p>
      <strong>John Doe</strong> is a certified SEO professional with 8 years of
      experience helping businesses improve their search rankings.
    </p>
  </div>
</article>

<script type="application/ld+json">
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "BlogPosting",
    "headline": "SEO Tips",
    "author": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "John Doe",
      "description": "Certified SEO professional with 8 years of experience",
      "sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndoe"]
    }
  }
</script>

Example 1: Missing author bio on blog post

Scenario: A blog post has no author information.

Problematic state (fails):

<article>
  <h1>10 SEO Tips for 2024</h1>
  <p>Posted on January 15, 2024</p>
  <p>Here are 10 tips to improve your SEO...</p>
</article>

Corrected state (passes):

<article>
  <h1>10 SEO Tips for 2024</h1>
  <p>By <strong>Sarah Johnson</strong> | Posted on January 15, 2024</p>
  <p>Here are 10 tips to improve your SEO...</p>
  <div class="author-bio">
    <h3>About the Author</h3>
    <p>
      <strong>Sarah Johnson</strong> is an SEO Consultant with 12 years of
      experience in digital marketing.
    </p>
  </div>
</article>

Example 2: Author info only in JavaScript

Scenario: Author bio loads via JavaScript after page load.

Problematic state (fails):

<article>
  <h1>Content Marketing Strategies</h1>
  <p>Content here...</p>
  <div id="author-bio-container">
    <!-- Author bio loaded via JavaScript -->
  </div>
</article>

Corrected state (passes):

<article>
  <h1>Content Marketing Strategies</h1>
  <p>Content here...</p>
  <div class="author-bio">
    <p>
      <strong>Mike Chen</strong> is a Content Strategist specializing in B2B
      marketing.
    </p>
  </div>
</article>

Example 3: Using generic author name

Scenario: Using "Admin" or "Staff" as author name.

Problematic state (fails):

<article>
  <h1>Technical SEO Guide</h1>
  <p>By Admin</p>
  <p>Guide content...</p>
</article>

Corrected state (passes):

<article>
  <h1>Technical SEO Guide</h1>
  <p>By <strong>David Wilson</strong>, Senior Technical SEO Specialist</p>
  <p>Guide content...</p>
  <div class="author-bio">
    <p>
      <strong>David Wilson</strong> has 15 years of experience in technical SEO
      and site architecture.
    </p>
  </div>
</article>

PixyScan checks for author information on blog posts through these steps:

Detection process

1. Identify blog posts: The crawler first determines if the page is a blog post or article by checking:

   • URL patterns (contains /blog/, /article/, /posts/, /news/)
   • Schema.org markup with @type: "BlogPosting", "Article", or "NewsArticle"

2. Look for author information:

   • Structured data: Checks JSON-LD or Microdata for an author property with a Person object containing name and description
   • HTML markup: Scans for elements with class or ID names like author-bio, author-profile, about-author, or biography

3. Extract author details: If author information is found, PixyScan extracts:

   • Author name
   • Author biography text
   • Word count of the biography

4. Flag issues: The page is flagged if:

   • It's a blog post but has no author bio text → WARNING
   • It's a blog post but has no author schema markup → SUGGESTION

Important limitations

• PixyScan only checks static HTML—not author information loaded by JavaScript
• If author bios are added dynamically, they won't be detected
• Generic author names like "admin" or "staff" are considered insufficient