Highlight author credentials and expertise
Checks for author bios and credentials to establish expertise and trust.
- Include a short bio for each author highlighting their relevant qualifications
- Link to the author's social profiles or professional websites (e.g., LinkedIn)
- Mention specific certifications or previous work to establish authority
Rule Details
Providing evidence of an author's expertise helps validate the content and build trust with your audience.
Code Example
<section class="author-bio" aria-labelledby="author-name">
<h3 id="author-name">About Jane Smith</h3>
<p>
<strong>Jane Smith</strong> is a Senior Security Researcher with over 15 years of experience.
She holds a CISSP certification and has led security audits for global technology firms.
</p>
<nav class="author-social" aria-label="Author social links">
<a href="https://linkedin.com/in/janesmith" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LinkedIn</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/janesmith" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a>
</nav>
</section>Why It Matters
- E-E-A-T: Directly supports the "Expertise" pillar of Google's search quality guidelines.
- User Trust: Users are more likely to follow advice or purchase products when the information comes from a verified expert.
- Conversion Rates: Credible authors can significantly improve the conversion rate of informative or promotional content.
- Brand Reputation: Showcasing a team of experts builds the overall authority of your brand in your niche.
Exceptions
- Necessary utility or compliance pages can be intentionally brief and should not be judged by the same editorial-depth expectations as ranking-focused content.
- AI-assisted drafting is not a failure by itself; flag unsupported claims, missing editorial review, or low-originality output instead.
- When a page has both trust-signal issues and crawl/index problems, make the page eligible to rank first and then improve the content quality signals.
Standards
- Use these references as the standard for the final search-facing HTML, metadata, and crawl behavior.
- Check the implementation against Google Search Central: Search Essentials before treating the rule as satisfied.
- Check the implementation against Google Search Central documentation before treating the rule as satisfied.
Verification
Automated Checks
- Inspect rendered HTML and HTTP headers to confirm the expected metadata or crawlability signal is present.
- Test the affected URL with Google Search Console or equivalent tooling where relevant.
- Re-crawl a representative page set after deployment.
Manual Checks
- Confirm the change does not create conflicting canonical-url, robots, or structured-data signals.
Use with AI
Copy these prompts to use with your AI assistant, or install the MCP server to use directly from Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf.
Check
Verify implementation
Verify that all authors have a bio or profile that clearly states their qualifications for writing on the topic.
Fix
Auto-fix issues
Add a short bio section for each author that highlights their experience and links to their professional profiles.
Explain
Learn more
Explain how author credentials impact search engine rankings, especially for YMYL (Your Money Your Life) topics.
Review
Code review
Review metadata generation, rendered HTML, structured data, and response headers related to Highlight author credentials and expertise. Flag exact routes or templates where search-facing output violates the rule, and describe how to verify the final page output.