Who's Behind It signal · 15% of your score
Why AI wants to know who's behind the page
Buyers and engines both end up asking the same question about a page: who is behind this? A named author with a real track record answers it. An anonymous page leaves it open.
Why it matters
A real name, a real bio, and links to the other places that author shows up online make you a recognizable entity rather than anonymous noise. Being straight about this one: in our own measurements, sites with clean identity markup were not more likely to get cited than sites without it. We keep it on the list because it's finishable in an afternoon, because a human landing on the page asks the same question, and because being unidentifiable is a bad place to be regardless. Not because we can show it moves an engine.
What the Tracker checks
- Named authors with a bio, photo, and credentials, not 'admin' or 'the team'
- Outbound identity links (LinkedIn, X, Wikipedia, company page) as sameAs
- An About page that tells a real story with specifics: years, places, prior work
- Organization schema with logo, address, and contact
How it's scored
Every site gets a 0 to 10 on this signal. Here's what each band looks like.
Strong
8–10Named authors with full bios and identity links, a specific About page, and Organization schema, the author and brand are searchable.
Mixed
5–7One named author with a thin bio and no outbound identity links; an About page that exists but reads generic.
Weak
0–4'Admin' or 'Editorial Team' bylines, no real About page, and no entity an engine could resolve.
How to improve it
- 1Put a real, named author on every page with a short credentialed bio
- 2Link each author to LinkedIn, X, or their company page (sameAs)
- 3Write an About page with specifics: years in the field, places, prior work
- 4Add Organization schema with your logo, address, and contact
The Tracker doesn't just score this, it drafts the exact pages to close the gap, built in the structure engines reward. Run your site through all six signals and get the one highest-impact fix to start with.
Questions, answered
What if I publish under a brand, not a personal name?
A brand can resolve as an entity too, with Organization schema, a logo, a real About page, and outbound links. But a named human author with a track record is the strongest trust signal of all.
Does an author photo really matter?
It's part of a bundle. A name, photo, bio, and outbound identity links together tell an engine the author is a real, recognizable person. Any one alone is weaker than the set.
The other five signals
See where you stand on all six.
One scan scores your site on every signal, shows the pages an engine reads and skips, and hands you the fix worth making first.
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