The author property quietly became an entity, not a string

The author property quietly became an entity, not a string

Under the radar: Google now explicitly recommends that the author property on Article markup be a structured Person or Organization object with a name and, ideally, a url — not a bare text string.

Why it matters for the experience-and-trust crowd: a linked author entity with a url pointing to a real bio page, plus sameAs to their profiles, builds the author into a recognizable entity Google and AI engines can attribute expertise to. A plain string author is a dead end.

What it means for you — upgrade every Article's author from text to a Person object linked to a genuine author page. Watch this: author-entity strength is becoming a quiet differentiator in YMYL and AI-citation contexts.