Article schema markup tells Google who wrote a piece, when it was published and updated, what it is called and which images represent it. None of that is exotic. The value lies in getting each field accurate and consistent with what the page shows, because a markup block that contradicts the visible page helps nobody.
This guide covers the types, the properties worth adding, the author rules people miss, image requirements and a JSON-LD example you can adapt. If structured data is new to you, start with our primer on schema markup and come back.
What article schema markup actually does
Google’s Article structured data documentation says the markup helps Google “show better title text, images, and date information for the article in search results”. That applies across Google Search, Google News and Google Assistant.
Read that sentence carefully. It does not promise a special rich result or a ranking lift. It promises that Google will understand three things more reliably: the title, the images and the dates. If those already come through cleanly, the markup is confirmation. If they do not, it is often the fix.
Three types are supported: Article, NewsArticle and BlogPosting. Pick the one that honestly describes the page. A blog post is a BlogPosting; a news report is a NewsArticle; anything else editorial can sit under the general Article type. Choosing a more specific type does not earn anything extra, so do not overthink it.
The properties to include in article schema
Here is the line from the documentation that surprises people: “There are no required properties; instead, add the properties that apply to your content.” In practice, five recommended properties cover nearly every editorial page.
| Property | What it holds | What Google’s guidance says |
|---|---|---|
author | Who wrote the piece | A Person for people, an Organization for companies; include url or sameAs to a profile |
datePublished | First publication date | ISO 8601 format |
dateModified | Most recent modification | ISO 8601 format |
headline | The article’s title | Recommended |
image | Representative images | “multiple high-resolution images (minimum of 50K pixels when multiplying width and height)” in 16×9, 4×3 and 1×1 |
“No required properties” is not an invitation to add one field and stop. It means Google will not reject the markup for missing something, so the quality bar is yours to set. Add every property from that table that genuinely applies.
Author schema: the rules people miss
The author field carries more detail in Google’s guidance than any other property, and it is where templates go wrong most often. Use the Person type for people and Organization for companies. A post written by a named writer should not list the publisher as its author.
Include a url or sameAs pointing to the author’s profile, so Google can tie the name to a real page about that person. That pairs naturally with visible author pages and bylines; our post on E-E-A-T examples shows what a credible author page tends to contain.
Two smaller rules catch out a lot of themes. If a piece has several authors, list each one separately rather than cramming them into a single name string. And put only the name in author.name: no job titles, no honorifics such as “Dr”, and not the publisher’s name. “Jane Smith” is right; “Dr Jane Smith, Senior Editor at Example Media” is not.
When a piece genuinely has no individual author, such as a company announcement or an unsigned house guide, the Organization type is the honest choice. Give it the organisation’s name and a url pointing to its about page. What you should avoid is the common template default that sets every post’s author to the site name, even when a named writer appears in the byline. The markup and the byline should tell the same story, and when they disagree it is usually the markup that is wrong.
Dates, headline and images
Dates must be in ISO 8601 format, ideally with a time and time zone. The bigger issue is honesty. datePublished should be the original publication date, and dateModified should change when the content meaningfully changes, not every time a sidebar widget updates.
The markup should also agree with the date shown on the page. A visible “Updated” line and a different date in the markup send mixed signals. Our guide to finding when a page was published shows how many places a date can leak from, which is a useful checklist for keeping them consistent.
The headline should match the visible title of the article. Keep it as the real H1 or close to it; this is a description of the page, not a second chance to write a title tag.
For images, Google asks for “multiple high-resolution images (minimum of 50K pixels when multiplying width and height)” in three aspect ratios: 16×9, 4×3 and 1×1. Supplying all three lets Google choose a crop that suits each surface rather than cutting your hero image awkwardly. Our guide to Google Images SEO covers file names, alt text and the rest of the image work.
An article schema example in JSON-LD
Here is a minimal BlogPosting block with every recommended property. It belongs in the page’s HTML, and each value should also be visible on the page.
The author is an array even with one entry, which makes adding a second author a one-line change. The three image URLs are the three crops of the same picture. Everything else is the plainest possible version of each field.
Most sites will not write this by hand. WordPress SEO plugins and theme templates generate it, and that is where errors multiply: one wrong mapping repeats across every post. Check the generated output on a few real pages, and look hardest at the author name and the modified date.
Then validate. Google’s Rich Results Test shows what Google reads from a page and flags errors and warnings. Run it on a post with one author, a post with several and a recently updated post; those three cases expose most template faults.
One limitation to be clear about. Article markup helps Google understand the title, images and dates; it does not make a weak article rank, and it does not guarantee that Google will display your chosen image or date. Judge the markup by whether it is accurate and complete, not by any visible change in the results next week.
Frequently asked questions
Does article schema have required properties?
No. Google’s documentation says there are no required properties and that you should add the properties that apply to your content. Author, datePublished, dateModified, headline and image are the recommended ones.
Should I use Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting?
Whichever describes the page honestly. BlogPosting for blog posts, NewsArticle for news reports, and Article for other editorial content.
What goes in author.name?
Only the author’s name. Leave out job titles, honorifics and the publisher, and list multiple authors separately.
How large should article schema images be?
Google asks for multiple high-resolution images with a minimum of 50K pixels when width and height are multiplied, in 16×9, 4×3 and 1×1 ratios.
The takeaway Pick the honest type, add all five recommended properties, keep the author name clean and linked to a profile, keep dates consistent with the page, and supply images in three ratios.
