Article Schema for Blogs and Publishers

Every blog post and news story you publish carries information that search engines want to know: who wrote it, when it was published, when it was last updated, what the headline is and which image represents it. Most of that is visible on the page, but Article structured data spells it out in a format machines can read without guessing.

Article schema won't produce a flashy rich result on its own the way product or recipe markup can. What it does is help Google show better title text, images and dates for your content, and make your authorship and publishing information explicit. For publishers, bloggers and businesses that rely on content marketing, that's a worthwhile, low-effort improvement.

This guide explains which Article types Google supports, the properties that matter, how to mark up authors properly, image and date requirements, a complete JSON-LD example and the mistakes we see most often in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• Article markup can help Google understand a page and show better title text, images and date information.
• Google supports three types: Article, NewsArticle and BlogPosting.
• There are no required properties; Google lists author, datePublished, dateModified, headline and image as recommended.
• Mark up each author separately with a name and a URL that uniquely identifies them.
• Provide high-resolution images (at least 50K pixels) in 16x9, 4x3 and 1x1 ratios, and include time zones in dates.

What Article Schema Does

Google describes the benefit directly: adding Article structured data can help Google understand more about the web page and show better title text, images and date information. Unlike some types, it isn't tied to a single rich result format. It supports how your articles appear across Search, including features like Top stories for news content and Google Discover.

It also reinforces the signals behind your content's credibility. Clear authorship, linked to real author pages, supports the kind of transparency Google's guidance on helpful content encourages. Our guides to author pages and subject-matter expert content explain why that matters.

Article vs NewsArticle vs BlogPosting

Type	Use for	Examples
Article	General articles that aren't specifically news or blog posts	Guides, resource pages, long-form features, sports reports
NewsArticle	News reporting	Breaking news, press coverage on a news site
BlogPosting	Blog posts	Company blog posts, personal blog entries

Schema.org places BlogPosting under Article in its hierarchy (Thing > CreativeWork > Article > SocialMediaPosting > BlogPosting), so it inherits all the same properties. Pick the type that best describes the page; Google treats all three as supported. News publishers should also read our guide to Google News SEO.

Properties Google Supports

“There are no required properties; instead, add the properties that apply to your content.”

— Google Search Central, Article structured data

Property	What to provide	Google's guidance
headline	The article title	Keep it concise and matching the visible title
image	One or more image URLs	High-resolution, at least 50K pixels (width × height); 16x9, 4x3 and 1x1 ratios recommended
datePublished	First publication date and time	ISO 8601; include time zone information
dateModified	Most recent modification date and time	ISO 8601; update only for meaningful changes
author	Person or Organization	Each author in their own entry
author.name	Author's name	Only the name, without job titles or "Posted by"
author.url	Link to the author's page or profile	A page that uniquely identifies the author

Google's documentation recommends providing timezone information in dates; without it, Google falls back to a default. It also asks that, when there are multiple authors, you list each author in their own author field rather than combining names into one string.

Example: BlogPosting JSON-LD

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BlogPosting",
  "headline": "How to Choose a Boiler for a Small Home",
  "image": [
    "https://www.example.com/img/boiler-1x1.jpg",
    "https://www.example.com/img/boiler-4x3.jpg",
    "https://www.example.com/img/boiler-16x9.jpg"
  ],
  "datePublished": "2026-09-02T08:00:00+01:00",
  "dateModified": "2026-10-12T14:30:00+01:00",
  "author": [
    {"@type": "Person", "name": "Jane Smith", "url": "https://www.example.com/team/jane-smith/"},
    {"@type": "Person", "name": "Tom Lee", "url": "https://www.example.com/team/tom-lee/"}
  ],
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Example Heating",
    "logo": {"@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.example.com/logo.png"}
  }
}
</script>

The publisher block isn't in Google's recommended list, but it's valid schema.org and lets you connect the article to your site-wide Organization schema.

Step-by-Step: Adding Article Schema

1. Check what your CMS already outputs. Many WordPress SEO plugins add Article or BlogPosting markup by default. View the page source or run the Rich Results Test first.
2. Choose the right type for each template: BlogPosting for the blog, NewsArticle for a newsroom, Article for evergreen guides.
3. Map fields to your data. Headline from the post title, dates from publish and update timestamps, authors from your author records.
4. Build proper author pages. Each author URL should be a real page with a bio and their articles.
5. Prepare images. Generate 16x9, 4x3 and 1x1 crops of the featured image at a high resolution.
6. Add time zones to every date.
7. Validate and deploy to the whole template, then spot-check several posts.
8. Keep dateModified honest. Update it when content changes meaningfully; our guide to updating old content explains what counts.

Tips by Publisher Type

The same markup serves very different sites. A few adjustments help each one:

• Small business blogs: use BlogPosting, link every post to a real author page, and set the publisher to your business. Our Google Discover guide explains why large, high-quality images are worth the effort.
• News publishers: use NewsArticle, publish accurate timestamps with time zones, and keep corrections reflected in dateModified.
• Multi-author content hubs: make sure guest and freelance writers have their own author pages so each author.url uniquely identifies them.
• Evergreen guides: use Article, and refresh dateModified only after genuine revisions.

Common Mistakes

• Author names with extras. "By Jane Smith, Senior Editor" in author.name. Use the name only.
• Several authors in one string. "Jane Smith and Tom Lee" should be two separate author entries.
• Fake freshness. Bumping dateModified without real changes. Visible dates and markup dates should match.
• Dates without time zones, leading to dates appearing a day off.
• Tiny or single-ratio images. Low-resolution thumbnails won't meet Google's 50K-pixel guidance.
• Duplicate markup. Theme and plugin both outputting Article blocks with different data.
• Marking up non-articles. Product, category and service pages aren't articles. Use the appropriate types, such as Event or JobPosting, where relevant.

Article Schema in the Context of Your Whole Page

Structured data works best when it confirms what the page already shows. Google's general structured data guidelines say markup should represent the visible content and that it enables, rather than guarantees, search features. That means your visible byline, dates and headline matter as much as the JSON-LD. Clean templates with a real <article> element, a single clear <h1> and a visible byline make everything consistent; our post on semantic HTML covers that side.

For AI search features, there's no official evidence that Article schema determines which sources get cited, so don't expect it to work as an AI visibility switch. Clear authorship, accurate dates and genuinely useful content remain the foundations. Our broader blog SEO guide covers the rest.

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Get Your Content Markup Right

Article schema is quick to implement and easy to get subtly wrong across hundreds of posts. If you'd like a structured data audit of your blog or newsroom, or help building author pages that support it, our content and technical teams can help. See our schema markup guide for other types, or request a quote today.

References

1. Article structured data – Google Search Central
2. General structured data guidelines – Google Search Central
3. Organization structured data – Google Search Central
4. BlogPosting – Schema.org

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