How to Create Article Schema: A Complete 2026 Guide

Chapter 1. Before you start

Article schema is what tells search engines and AI engines that a page is an editorial unit of content with an author, a publication date, and a publisher. Every blog post on your site needs it; news articles, opinion pieces, and long-form editorial all use the same family of types.

• Your Organization schema and WebSite schema already published. Article references both via publisher and isPartOf.
• Author info for every byline on the site. At minimum: name, role, headshot URL, and one canonical profile (LinkedIn). Skip "Editorial Team" attributions - Google QRG flags these as Low quality.
• Three image aspect ratios for every article hero: 1:1 (square), 4:3 (standard), 16:9 (wide). Minimum 1200 pixels wide for the largest variant.
• Accurate datePublished and dateModified visible on the page that match the schema values. Don't fake refresh dates.

Chapter 2. Article, BlogPosting, or NewsArticle: which subtype?

Use the most specific subtype that fits. Google supports three:

For a blog post on a brand's /blog path: use BlogPosting. For a news story on a publisher site: use NewsArticle. For anything that doesn't fit either (a long-form editorial review, a case study): use Article. Sub-subtypes also exist: OpinionNewsArticle, ReviewNewsArticle, AnalysisNewsArticle, ReportageNewsArticle. Use them when applicable; default to the parent if not sure.

Chapter 3. Required and recommended properties

Per Google's Article documentation, there are no strictly required properties. The recommended floor below is what we ship on every client editorial page.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BlogPosting",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/blog/post-slug#article",
  "headline": "Article Title Goes Here",
  "description": "One-sentence summary of the article.",
  "datePublished": "2026-05-20T08:00:00-05:00",
  "dateModified": "2026-05-20T08:00:00-05:00",
  "author": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/about#author-slug" },
  "publisher": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization" },
  "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#website" },
  "image": [
    "https://www.example.com/blog/post-slug/hero-1x1.jpg",
    "https://www.example.com/blog/post-slug/hero-4x3.jpg",
    "https://www.example.com/blog/post-slug/hero-16x9.jpg"
  ],
  "mainEntityOfPage": "https://www.example.com/blog/post-slug",
  "articleSection": "Analytics",
  "keywords": "GA4, Shopify, ecommerce analytics",
  "wordCount": 2150
}

Note the @id pattern: author, publisher, and isPartOf reference other schemas by their @id rather than duplicating the full Person, Organization, and WebSite blocks inside every Article. This keeps the entity graph clean and reduces breakage when you update Organization details once.

Chapter 4. Author and publisher entity references

Author must be a Person (or sometimes Organization) entity, not a plain string. Google QRG explicitly flags "Editorial Team" or anonymous authorship as Low quality for E-E-A-T evaluation. The author block needs name, url, and sameAs at minimum.

{
  "@type": "Person",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/about#jane-doe",
  "name": "Jane Doe",
  "jobTitle": "Senior Editor, Example Brand",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/about#jane-doe",
  "image": "https://www.example.com/brand/jane-avatar.jpg",
  "description": "Jane covers analytics and measurement for the Example Brand audience.",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/janedoe",
    "https://x.com/janedoe"
  ],
  "worksFor": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization" }
}

Publisher references the Organization schema you shipped on the homepage. Use the @id reference rather than re-declaring the full Organization in every Article. If you missed shipping Organization schema, see post #5 in this cluster, the Organization schema guide.

Chapter 5. The image array (1:1, 4:3, 16:9)

Google requires images for rich result eligibility and recommends three aspect ratios per article: 1:1 (square), 4:3 (standard), and 16:9 (wide). Different SERP surfaces and AI engine outputs prefer different ratios; shipping all three gives Google the flexibility to render the article in any context.

• 1:1 square: minimum 1200x1200 pixels.
• 4:3 standard: minimum 1600x1200 pixels.
• 16:9 wide: minimum 1920x1080 pixels (also serves as Open Graph image).

Generate all three from the same source image. Most static-site generators and CMSs can produce them automatically; for manual workflows, use sharp or any image tool that crops to fixed ratios. Each URL in the image array must be publicly crawlable and indexable - blocking the image URL via robots.txt breaks rich result eligibility.

Chapter 6. Where do you place Article schema?

One Article schema per editorial page, embedded inside a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag in <head> or before </body>. Either location works for Google; head is more conventional and ensures the schema is parsed before any body content loads.

Do not ship Article schema on:

• Category or archive pages (those need CollectionPage if anything).
• Product pages (those need Product + Offer, covered in post #8).
• About pages (those need AboutPage or WebPage).
• Landing pages with no editorial author or publication date.
• Homepage (use WebSite + Organization instead).

Match the schema to what the page actually is. Shipping Article on a product page is a Google policy violation (structured data must match content).

Chapter 7. The breakages we see most often

Ranked by frequency across 47 ecommerce content audits over the past 24 months:

• Publisher as a plain string instead of an Organization @id reference: entity graph broken. 31 of 47 audited sites.
• Author missing sameAs: E-E-A-T authorship signal incomplete. 28 of 47.
• Only one image aspect ratio shipped: rich result eligibility limited. 22 of 47.
• dateModified always equals datePublished: tells search engines nothing about freshness. 18 of 47.
• Author is a string ("Editorial Team") instead of a Person entity: QRG-flagged. 14 of 47.
• Article schema on non-article pages (product, landing, about): policy violation. 11 of 47.
• Image URLs blocked by robots.txt: rich result eligibility broken. 6 of 47.

We track Article schema integrity through our Sentry product; the structured-data rule set catches every breakage above on running sites.