Who Article schema credits as author, by platform (top-1M pages, HTTP Archive Sept 2026)
| Platform | Article pages | Named person | Organization | Placeholder | No author | Person, no name | Not a real person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 48,377 | 85.5% | 1.1% | 10.1% | 2.0% | 1.1% | 14.3% |
| Shopify | 528 | 77.7% | 8.5% | 0.6% | 9.5% | 1.3% | 19.9% |
| Wix, Squarespace or Webflow | 298 | 52.3% | 12.1% | 2.7% | 8.4% | 1.7% | 24.8% |
| Other or custom | 31,150 | 56.7% | 25.8% | 1.6% | 13.2% | 0.9% | 41.5% |
| All | 80,353 | 74.1% | 10.8% | 6.7% | 6.5% | 1.0% | 24.9% |
Source: PageSpeed Matters, Sept 2026. Bare text-string authors are not shown as a column, so rows do not always sum to 100%.
Summary
Article structured data has an author property, and Google's Article documentation recommends marking up the author by name, as a Person for people and an Organization for organizations. That field is one of the few places a page states, in machine-readable form, who is behind the content. We checked what it actually says on pages across the top 1M sites.
On 80,353 pages marked up as an Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting, 24.9% don't name a real person as the author. About one in four credit the brand, use a placeholder such as "admin", or leave the author out entirely. 74.1% do name a person.
What we measured
We used the HTTP Archive September 2026 mobile crawl of the top 1M sites by Chrome traffic. For every page, we parsed each JSON-LD block in the rendered HTML, following @graph arrays and @id references, and took the first node typed Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting.
We then classified that node's author: a named person, an Organization, a placeholder person (names such as admin, editor, staff or team), no author at all, a Person object with no name, or a bare text string. "Not a real person" adds up the Organization, placeholder, no-author and no-name groups.
Only pages with Article-type JSON-LD are included, so this says nothing about pages without markup. A named person can still be a pen name; we only check that a person is named. The split by Article type below uses a broader placeholder list, so it is reported separately from the 24.9% headline.
One in four Article pages name no real person
Of the 80,353 Article pages, 74.1% name a person as the author. The other 24.9% break down like this:
- 10.8% credit an Organization, most likely the site's own brand.
- 6.7% credit a placeholder such as admin, editor, staff or team.
- 6.5% leave the author out of the markup.
- 1.0% list a Person with no name.
Placeholders and blank Person objects likely come from templates and plugins filling the field automatically. The account name that published the post, often "admin", ends up as the public author, or the theme outputs a Person node without the name filled in.
Homepages that carry Article markup are the weakest group. 29.4% of 19,790 homepages name no real person, against 23.4% of 60,563 inner pages, and placeholders appear on 9.4% of homepages against 5.8% of inner pages. A homepage is rarely an article, so Article markup there is likely a theme default rather than a deliberate choice.
24.9%
Share of 80,353 top-1M pages with Article-type markup whose schema author is not a named person.
WordPress names people, custom sites name the brand
The platform split is the sharpest in the data. WordPress sites are the most likely to name a person, on 85.5% of 48,377 Article pages, and only 14.3% name no real person. But WordPress also has the highest placeholder rate of any platform at 10.1%, likely because themes and SEO plugins publish the post author's account name, admin included.
Custom and other platforms lean on the brand instead. On 31,150 Article pages outside WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace and Webflow, 25.8% credit an Organization and 13.2% give no author, so only 56.7% name a person and 41.5% do not.
Shopify store blogs name a person on 77.7% of 528 Article pages. Wix, Squarespace and Webflow pages are the smallest group, 298 pages, and 22.8% of them give the author as a bare text string rather than a Person object. A text string is valid JSON-LD, but it tells a parser less than a Person with a name.
BlogPosting pages name a person most often
Splitting by markup type, using a broader placeholder list that puts the overall "not a real person" rate at 25.6% rather than 24.9%, BlogPosting pages name a person most often: 81.5% of 10,095. NewsArticle pages follow at 73.6% of 20,677, and plain Article pages at 71.8% of 49,581.
NewsArticle pages are the most likely to leave the author out, at 10.7%. News sites likely credit wire services or desks in some cases, and some publish briefs and live pages with no single author in the markup.
What this means for your site
Check what your Article markup says, not what your theme shows. View the page source or run a page through Google's Rich Results Test and find the author property.
- If it says admin, editor or your login name, change the display name on that user account, or set the author in your SEO plugin to the real writer.
- If it credits only your Organization on posts that a person wrote, switch the author to a Person with that writer's name and keep the Organization as the publisher.
- If the author is missing or a Person has no name, fix the template so it fills the name in every time.
- If your homepage carries Article markup, ask whether it should; a WebSite or Organization type usually fits a homepage better.
- Make sure the name in the markup matches the visible byline on the page.
Sources
- HTTP Archive, September 2026 mobile crawl, top 1M sites by Chrome traffic
- Google Search Central, Article structured data: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/article
- Schema.org, Article type: https://schema.org/Article
Embed this research
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<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/article-schema-authors">Article Schema Authors: 1 in 4 Article Pages Name No Real Person - PageSpeed Matters</a></p>
Frequently asked questions
How many Article pages name a real person as the author in schema?
Of 80,353 top-1M pages with Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting markup, 74.1% name a person as the author and 24.9% do not.
What do Article pages use instead of a person's name?
10.8% credit an Organization, 6.7% use a placeholder such as admin, editor, staff or team, 6.5% leave the author out and 1.0% list a Person with no name.
Which platform is most likely to name a person in Article schema?
WordPress, on 85.5% of 48,377 Article pages, although it also has the highest placeholder rate at 10.1%. Custom and other platforms name a person on only 56.7% of 31,150 pages and credit an Organization on 25.8%.
How do I check the author in my Article schema?
View your page source or run the page through Google's Rich Results Test and find the author property in your Article markup. It should be a Person with the writer's real name, matching the visible byline.
Placeholder and brand-only authors usually come from one template or plugin setting, so a single fix corrects every article at once. Need help with this? See our on-page SEO services.