By Iliass El Barhoumi · Published · Last updated
How is entity & authorship clarity scored?
Entity & authorship clarity is worth 7 of 100 points, 7 of the 15 in the Ranked lever, which asks “Does this read as a source worth trusting?” The engine scores it with these rules:
- 2 points for Organization or Person JSON-LD.
- 2 points for a sameAs pointing at profiles that corroborate the entity.
- 1 point for a visible byline, found through rel="author", itemprop="author", an author or byline class, or a “By Jane Doe” line.
- 1 point for a link to an About page, and 1 for a publisher with a logo.
What does a pass and a fail look like?
| Verdict | Example |
|---|---|
| Pass | A post with “By Jane Doe” linking to her author page, Article JSON-LD naming her as a Person with sameAs links to her LinkedIn and GitHub, and an Organization publisher with a logo. |
| Fail | An unsigned post on a site with no About link and no structured data. Nothing on the page says who stands behind the claims. |
How do you fix entity & authorship clarity?
In the order worth doing it:
- Add a visible byline with a real name, linked to an author or About page.
- Add Organization JSON-LD with a logo, and Person JSON-LD for authors.
- List in sameAs only profiles that exist and describe the same entity.
A scan reports the evidence behind the verdict, such as the sections, paragraphs or tokens that failed, and the fix prompt hands the same evidence to a coding agent so it can make the change for you.
Related checks in the Ranked lever
- Do AI engines care how old a page is? — 4 points
- Why does a page that covers everything get cited for nothing? — 4 points
Frequently asked questions
Does author information affect AI citations?
It affects whether a page can be attributed. An engine choosing between sources has more reason to trust, and to name, one whose author and publisher it can identify and corroborate.
What should sameAs link to?
Profiles that exist and describe the same person or organisation: a LinkedIn page, a GitHub account, a Wikipedia or Wikidata entry, a Crunchbase listing. A dead or unrelated link is worse than none.