What Article schema does

Article schema identifies a page as editorial content and connects it to the entities responsible for it "” the author and publisher. For AI systems, this creates an auditable chain of provenance: who wrote this, who published it, when was it written, and when was it last checked. These are the signals AI systems use when deciding whether to cite a piece of content.

Without Article schema, AI systems must infer authorship and publication dates from the page content itself "” a slower, less reliable process that often leads to incorrect attribution or no attribution at all. With Article schema, you make the provenance explicit and machine-readable.

The structure of Article schema

Article schema is placed in a @graph alongside BreadcrumbList, and references the author and publisher by their @id values from other schema entities defined on the site:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": "Article",
      "@id": "https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/blog/boiler-servicing-guide.html#article",
      "headline": "Boiler Servicing Guide for UK Homeowners",
      "url": "https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/blog/boiler-servicing-guide.html",
      "datePublished": "2025-09-15T09:00:00+00:00",
      "dateModified": "2026-03-20T09:00:00+00:00",
      "inLanguage": "en-GB",
      "author": {
        "@type": "Person",
        "@id": "https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/#james-smith"
      },
      "publisher": {
        "@id": "https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk/#organization"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The fields that matter for AI

1
datePublished "” when the article was first published, in ISO 8601 format with timezone. This anchors the content in time and allows AI systems to assess whether the content was written with recent context.
2
dateModified "” when the content was last updated. For guides, pricing pages, or regulation-adjacent content, keeping this field current is important. AI systems treat recently modified content as more reliable for queries where freshness matters.
3
author "” the Person or Organization responsible for writing the content. Reference an @id that links to a declared Person entity on your site with a name, url, and optionally sameAs linking to their LinkedIn or author profile. This is the authorship chain that builds E-E-A-T signals.
4
publisher "” the Organization publishing the content. Reference your @organization entity by its @id. This connects the article to your business entity, reinforcing that the content is authoritative output from a known entity rather than anonymous text.
5
headline "” must match the page's H1 heading exactly. Inconsistency between the schema headline and the visible H1 is a validation issue and weakens the content's structured data signal.

Article subtypes: when to use them

Schema.org has several subtypes of Article. For most small business content, the generic Article type is correct. The subtypes worth knowing are:

Article "” general editorial content, guides, explainers. Use for most content pages.
BlogPosting "” a subtype of Article for informal blog posts. Functionally equivalent for AI purposes.
NewsArticle "” for time-sensitive news content. Not appropriate for evergreen guides.
HowTo "” a distinct type (not an Article subtype) for step-by-step instructional content. More specific and more valuable for procedural queries.

Common mistakes to avoid

Using Article schema on service pages

Article schema is for editorial content. Applying it to service pages, location pages, or contact pages is a misuse of the type. These pages should use LocalBusiness or WebPage schema instead.

Author with no linked entity

Declaring an author name as a text string rather than referencing a Person @id provides no E-E-A-T value. Define a Person entity on your site with a name and url, then reference it by @id in your Article schema.

Stale dateModified

If your article has been updated but the dateModified field still shows the original publication date, you lose the freshness signal. Update dateModified whenever you make substantive changes to content.

Questions about Article schema

What is Article schema?
+
Article schema is structured data markup that identifies a page as editorial content and declares who wrote it, who published it, and when it was published and last updated. It connects your content to the author and publisher entities in your schema graph, building E-E-A-T signals that AI systems use when assessing content credibility.
Should service pages and landing pages use Article schema?
+
No. Article schema is for editorial content "” guides, blog posts, explainers. Service pages, location pages, and contact pages should not use Article schema. Using it on non-editorial pages is a misuse of the type and may generate validation warnings.
How does dateModified affect AI citation likelihood?
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AI systems are sensitive to content freshness when answering queries where recency matters "” pricing guides, regulation summaries, how-to content. A page with a recent dateModified timestamp signals that the content has been reviewed and updated, which increases citation credibility compared to pages with no date signals or clearly old publication dates.