Person schema is structured data that describes an individual: their name, role, qualifications, employer, and links to their professional profiles. It is the mechanism by which authorship becomes machine-readable, and the foundation of how AI systems assess whether content comes from someone with real, verifiable expertise.
Six Person schema properties that matter for AI visibility
name
The legal or professional name the individual publishes under. This should be consistent across the schema record, the author byline on content, and any external professional profiles. Inconsistency between the schema name and external profiles reduces the confidence AI systems can assign to the identity match.
sameAs
The highest-value field for AI visibility. sameAs takes an array of URLs pointing to the individual's presence on external platforms: LinkedIn, professional body directories, accreditation registers, academic profiles, or any indexed profile that confirms identity. AI systems use these links to cross-reference the claimed identity against independent sources, converting a self-declaration into a corroborated record.
hasCredential
Declares qualifications, certifications, and professional memberships in a structured way. Each credential can be listed as an EducationalOccupationalCredential object with name, issuing organisation, and credential URL. This allows AI systems to parse credentials as structured data rather than trying to extract them from prose, which is unreliable.
jobTitle
The individual's professional role: solicitor, chartered accountant, gas safe engineer, physiotherapist. jobTitle helps AI systems match the person to the topics their content covers. A piece about employment law written by someone with jobTitle "Employment Solicitor" carries more authority signal than the same piece attributed to a generic role.
worksFor
Links the individual to an Organisation schema record, connecting personal authority to business entity. This is particularly important for small businesses where the owner is the primary expert: the link between the Person (author) and the Organisation (business) strengthens both records and allows AI systems to understand the relationship between the individual's expertise and the business they represent.
url and image
The url property points to the author's dedicated bio page on the website -- a canonical anchor for the Person schema record. The image property links to a professional photograph. Both properties make the schema record more complete and provide AI systems with additional assets to associate with the identity. An author bio page with its own URL is significantly more effective than embedding Person schema in article pages only.
What weakens Person schema effectiveness
No sameAs links
Without external profile links, the Person schema record is self-contained and unverifiable. AI systems have no external source to cross-reference the identity against, so the authority signal is low-confidence.
Credentials in prose only
Listing qualifications in a paragraph without hasCredential markup means AI systems must extract that information from unstructured text. Structured declarations are parsed reliably; prose-based ones may be missed or misread.
Generic team authorship
Content attributed to "The AI Visible Team" or similar collective names cannot carry Person schema. There is no individual to verify, no credentials to attach, and no external profiles to link to.
No dedicated author page
Without a canonical author bio page, Person schema has no permanent URL to anchor to. The schema is embedded in articles rather than standing alone as an entity record, which limits how AI systems can index and reference it.
Name inconsistency across sources
If the schema says "James Williams" but LinkedIn shows "Jim Williams" and the byline shows "J. Williams", AI systems attempting to merge these records may treat them as different people, fragmenting the authority signal.
Disconnected from Organisation schema
A Person schema record without a worksFor link to the business Organisation schema leaves the individual floating in isolation. Connecting the two allows AI systems to understand the full entity picture: who the person is, what they do, and which business they represent.
| Property | Strong implementation | Weak implementation |
|---|---|---|
| sameAs |
|
|
| hasCredential |
|
|
| Author page |
|
|
"The sameAs property is Person schema's most important field for AI visibility. Without it, the schema record is self-contained and unverifiable. With it, every link is a cross-reference AI systems can use to confirm the identity is real."
Person schema checklist
Eight checks covering identity, credentials, and external verification.
- Person schema is present on every author bio page, not just on individual article pages
- The name property exactly matches the byline on all published content and all external profiles
- sameAs includes at least one external professional profile URL (LinkedIn, professional body directory, accreditation register)
- hasCredential is used for each relevant qualification, with issuing organisation and credential URL included
- jobTitle accurately reflects the professional role most relevant to the content topics the person covers
- worksFor links to the business Organisation schema record by @id reference
- The author bio page has a unique, permanent URL set as the url property in the schema
- Article pages reference the author's Person schema by @id rather than duplicating the full schema block on each page
Authority signals: how AI search systems assess topical credibility
Person schema is the technical implementation layer for authority. The authority signals guide explains what AI systems are looking for and why named, credentialled authorship is one of the six signals they assess.
Read: authority signals explainedKey takeaway
Person schema makes authorship machine-readable. The name property establishes identity, jobTitle connects it to a topic area, sameAs provides the external verification links AI systems need to confirm that identity is real, and hasCredential converts qualifications into structured data rather than prose claims. A dedicated author bio page with a canonical URL is the most effective way to anchor a Person schema record, and linking it to the business Organisation schema through worksFor connects personal authority to business entity in a way AI systems can read and use.
Frequently asked questions
Person schema is a type of structured data that describes an individual: their name, job title, qualifications, employer, and links to their professional profiles. It allows AI systems and search engines to build a machine-readable identity record for an author or expert, which they can use to assess credibility and match content to verified people.
Yes. AI systems use Person schema to verify that the person named as an author actually exists and has the credentials they claim. When a business publishes content under a named author with a Person schema that includes qualifications, employer, and professional profile links, AI systems can treat that content as coming from a verifiable expert rather than an anonymous source.
The sameAs property is the highest-value field in Person schema for AI visibility. It links the schema record to external profiles such as LinkedIn, professional body directories, and accreditation registers. These external links allow AI systems to cross-reference the identity claim against independent sources, which is how they confirm authority rather than just accepting it.
You can add a basic Person schema block to any page, but a dedicated author bio page is significantly more effective. An author page gives the Person schema a canonical URL (the url property), provides space for a full credential listing, and creates a page that AI systems can index independently as an authority record for that individual.
Organisation schema describes the business as an entity: its name, address, contact details, and professional accreditations. Person schema describes an individual within or associated with that business: their name, qualifications, role, and professional profiles. Both work together -- Organisation schema establishes the business entity, Person schema establishes the human authority behind its content.