Author and entity signals explained

What an entity is

To a search engine, an entity is a thing it can recognise and tell apart from others: a business, a person, a place, a product. Google keeps a huge store of known entities and the facts about them, and uses it to understand searches and pages. When someone searches for your business name, or asks an AI tool about you, the answer depends on whether you are recognised as one clear entity with consistent facts.

Entity signals are the clues that help with that recognition. Your name written the same way everywhere. The same address and phone number on your site and your listings. Markup that states, in a form machines read, who you are and where else you can be found. Author pages that connect a person to what they write. None of these is a switch that lifts rankings. Together they remove doubt, and doubt is what makes a search engine or an AI tool hesitate to name you.

Step 1: settle your facts

Write down, once, the facts you want the world to repeat about your business. Then use exactly these everywhere:

• Your official name. Decide whether it is “Example Garden Centre”, “Example Garden Centre Ltd” or “Example Gardens”, and use one form in public.
• Your address and phone number, if customers visit or call, written the same way each time.
• A one-sentence description of what you do and for whom. AI tools often repeat a short description they find; give them a good one.
• Your logo, one version, at a stable address on your site.
• Your official profiles: Business Profile on Google, social accounts, industry directories you are really listed in.

Step 2: state them on your own site

Your site should be the clearest source of facts about you. An About page that says who runs the business, where, since when, and what makes it different. A contact page with the same address and phone number as your listings. A footer that names the business. These are for people first; search engines read them too.

Step 3: mark them up

Organization markup is a short block of structured data, usually on the home page, that states your facts in a form machines read. Google uses it to understand who is behind a site, and can use the logo in its results. A simple version looks like this:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Example Garden Centre",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "logo": "https://www.example.com/logo.png",
  "description": "A family garden centre selling plants, tools and advice since 1998.",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.facebook.com/examplegarden",
    "https://www.instagram.com/examplegarden"
  ]
}
</script>

The sameAs list names your official profiles elsewhere, tying them to your site. Only list profiles that are truly yours. If you have a shop or office people visit, a more specific type such as LocalBusiness or Store can carry your address and opening hours. Whatever you mark up must match what the page says: markup that disagrees with the visible page is ignored at best. Our structured data guide covers the wider rules.

Step 4: link your profiles both ways

Link from your site to your official profiles, and from each profile back to your site. Fill in each profile with the same name, description, address and phone number you settled on. Where facts differ, fix the profile rather than adding a note: an old address on a forgotten directory listing is a common source of confusion.

If customers visit you or you serve a local area, your Business Profile on Google matters most of all. It is often the first thing people see when they search for your name, and the facts in it should match your site exactly. Check it after any move, change of phone number or change of opening hours. Then work through the other listings you know of, starting with the ones that show up when you search for your own business name. You don’t need to be everywhere; you need to be right wherever you are.

What about Wikidata and Wikipedia?

Wikidata is an open store of facts that many search engines and AI tools draw on. If your business already has an item there, check that its facts are right and that it links to your official site. If it has none, be careful: Wikidata and Wikipedia have notability rules, and an item created by a business about itself without independent sources is likely to be removed. Earn mentions from independent sources first; entries tend to follow.

Step 5: show who wrote each page

For articles, guides and advice, readers want to know who is speaking. Google’s guidance for articles is simple: show the author’s name on the page, and link it to a page about that person. That helps readers judge the advice, and helps search engines connect the person to what they know. Our guide on first-hand experience explains why that matters.

1. Add a byline to every article. The author’s name near the title, as a link to their profile page. Use the same form of the name everywhere.
2. Give each author a profile page. A photo, a few lines on their role and experience, what they write about, and links to their profiles elsewhere, such as a professional network page.
3. Add the author to the article’s markup. In Article markup, the author property can name the person and link to their profile page with url. On the profile page, Person markup can repeat their name and sameAs links.
4. Keep it true. Don’t invent authors or credentials. A business can be the author of its own pages: “By the Example Garden Centre team” is honest when no single person wrote it.