Google Article structured data

Google Article structured data,
as documented

The Article, NewsArticle and BlogPosting properties and author rules Google documents, in Google's own words. Verified from Google's page on 2026-10-07.

Google says adding Article structured data to news, blog and sports article pages can help it understand the page and show better title text, images and date information in search results. This page lists the properties, images, dates and author rules Google documents for it, with the wording taken from Google's page.

What Google documents

Topic	What Google says	Source
What it is for	“Adding Article structured data to your news, blog, and sports article pages can help Google understand more about the web page and show better title text, images, and date information for the article in search results on Google Search and other properties (for example, Google News and the Google Assistant).”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Google News	“While there's no markup requirement to be eligible for Google News features like Top stories, you can add Article to more explicitly tell Google what your content is about”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Allowed types	“Article objects must be based on one of the following schema.org types: Article, NewsArticle, BlogPosting.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Required properties	“There are no required properties; instead, add the properties that apply to your content.”Google's recommended properties are author, author.name, author.url, dateModified, datePublished, headline and image.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
headline	“Consider using a concise title, as long titles may be truncated on some devices.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
image: relevance	“Use images that are relevant to the article, rather than logos or captions.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
image: crawlable	“Image URLs must be crawlable and indexable.”Google: images must also represent the marked up content and be in a file format supported by Google Images.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
image: size and ratios	“For best results, we recommend providing multiple high-resolution images (minimum of 50K pixels when multiplying width and height) with the following aspect ratios: 16x9, 4x3, and 1x1.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
datePublished	“The date and time the article was first published, in ISO 8601 format.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
dateModified	“The date and time the article was most recently modified, in ISO 8601 format.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Time zones	“We recommend that you provide timezone information; otherwise, we will default to the timezone used by Googlebot.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Why dates are optional	“The Rich Results Test doesn't show a warning for this property, as it's only recommended if you decide that it's applicable to your site.”Google says this for both dateModified and datePublished.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
author.url	“A link to a web page that uniquely identifies the author of the article.”Google: for example the author's social media page, an "about me" page, or a bio page. It says you can use sameAs as an alternative, and that it can understand both sameAs and url when disambiguating authors.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Include all authors	“Make sure that all the authors that are presented as authors on the web page are also included in markup.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Multiple authors	“When specifying multiple authors, list each author in their own author field:”Google's example of what not to do begins with: Don't merge multiple authors in the same author field.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Type and URL	“we strongly recommend using the type and url (or sameAs) properties.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
author.name only	“In the author.name property, only specify the name of the author. Don't add any other piece of information.”Google says not to add the publisher's name, a job title, an honorific prefix or suffix, or introductory words such as "posted by", and names the properties to use instead.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Person or Organization	“Use the Person type for people, and the Organization type for organizations.”Google adds: don't use the Thing type, and don't use the wrong type.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Multi-part articles	“For multi-part articles, make sure that the rel=canonical points at either each individual page or a”Google continues: a "view-all" page, and not page 1 of a multi-part series.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Paywalled content	“If you offer subscription-based access to your website content, or if users must register for access, consider adding structured data for subscription and paywalled content.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Testing	“Validate your code using the Rich Results Test and fix any critical errors.”Google also says to use the URL Inspection tool to test how Google sees a deployed page, and that the page must not be blocked by robots.txt, noindex or login requirements.	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
No guarantee	“Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07
Manual action	“If your site violates one or more of these guidelines, then Google may take manual action against it.”	Google docs Verified 2026-10-07

Read on 2026-10-07. Google's Article structured data page showed "Last updated 2026-09-08 UTC". Notes under a quote are close paraphrases of the same page. Google does not guarantee that structured data features show up in search results. This page covers only what Google documents.

Examples

Google's own example of author markup that follows its best practices for a person: a type, a name and a url.

"author": [
  {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Willow Lane",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/staff/willow_lane"
  }
]

Google's own example of several images in the three aspect ratios it recommends.

"image": [
  "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
  "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
  "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
]

Build the JSON-LD with the free Article schema generator or the schema markup generator, then check what a page already carries with the JSON-LD checker. For the general rules, see Google's structured data guidelines and which structured data Google still shows.

Rules to remember

Google says Article has no required properties; add the ones that apply.
Google says to list each author in their own author field and to put only the name in author.name.
Google says it does not guarantee that structured data features will show up in search results.

Titles and snippets in results: Google title link guidelines.

Images in articles: Google image SEO best practices.

Multi-part articles: Google pagination guidance.

Questions

Which properties does Article structured data require?

None. Google says there are no required properties and tells you to add the properties that apply to your content. It recommends author, author.name, author.url, dateModified, datePublished, headline and image.

Can I use BlogPosting for a blog post?

Yes. Google says Article objects must be based on one of three schema.org types: Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting.

How should I mark up several authors?

List each author in their own author field and do not merge them into one field. Google also says to include every author that is presented on the page, and to use the Person type for people and the Organization type for organizations.

What images does Google recommend?

Google says to use images relevant to the article rather than logos or captions, crawlable and indexable, and for best results to provide multiple high-resolution images (minimum of 50K pixels when multiplying width and height) in 16x9, 4x3 and 1x1 aspect ratios.

Do I need dates in the markup?

Google lists datePublished and dateModified as recommended, not required, in ISO 8601 format, and recommends providing time zone information. Otherwise it says it will default to the timezone used by Googlebot.

Does Article markup guarantee a rich result?

No. Google says it does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.

How current is this page?

Every row was read from Google's Article structured data page on 2026-10-07, which showed a last-updated date of 2026-09-08 UTC. Google can change its documentation, so treat the linked page as the final word.

Sources

Article (Article, NewsArticle, BlogPosting) structured data (Google Search Central), read on 2026-10-07

Let Balzac write the articles.

Type your website. Balzac finds the searches you can win, writes articles built to rank on Google and get cited by ChatGPT, and publishes them for you.

3 free articles · No card needed