Author pages that prove a byline belongs to someone

Publish a page only for a real author

The page should name the person, say what they are qualified to explain, and list the guides they actually wrote. A page for ‘Marketing Team’ with no articles does not need to be indexed.

Use the same name and portrait across bylines, the author page, and any external profile you link. Small inconsistencies make the entity harder to resolve.

Link the article and the author in both directions

The byline should link to the author page, and the author page should link back to the articles. That loop is how a reader, and a crawler, sees a body of work.

Person schema can repeat the same visible facts: name, job, and the URL of the page. Do not mark up credentials the page does not show.

• Index author pages that have a real bibliography.
• Noindex empty or single-use archives.
• Keep the name consistent with external profiles.

Retire authors without breaking their articles

When someone leaves, keep the page if the articles still stand, and say the affiliation is historical. Redirect only when two profiles are the same person.

Do not reassign the entire archive to a new name overnight. The byline is part of the record.

Should every author archive be indexed?

Index it when it helps someone evaluate the writer and find their articles. Noindex archives with no unique information.

Can several people share one author page?

Use an organisation or desk byline instead of pretending a department is a single person. Individual pages are for individual responsibility.