About pages and author pages for GEO

An About page and author pages do one job: they tell a reader, and any system that reads the page, who is behind the website and who wrote what. Google's guidance encourages this. It does not require it, and we found no Google documentation that says an author page or a piece of markup will get you cited in an AI answer.

That is the honest starting point for GEO (generative engine optimization, the work of getting your business described accurately and cited in AI answers). These pages are worth doing well because they make your business easier to understand and to trust. They are not a lever you pull for placement.

What Google says about E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It is Google's shorthand for qualities its systems try to identify in helpful content. Google's page on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content says: "While E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor, using a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T is useful."

Read both halves. Google's SEO Starter Guide lists "Thinking E-E-A-T is a ranking factor" among the things you shouldn't focus on, and answers it in three words: "No, it's not." Google describes no E-E-A-T score for you to raise. Yet the same company says its systems look for a mix of factors that identify content with those qualities. Anyone who tells you E-E-A-T is a ranking factor is wrong. So is anyone who tells you it doesn't matter.

Three more lines from Google's page are worth knowing:

• Trust comes first. "Of these aspects, trust is most important."
• Some topics get more scrutiny. Google says its systems "give even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people." These are often called YMYL ("Your Money or Your Life") topics. Our article on YMYL and E-E-A-T on mental health websites shows what that means in one field.
• Not everything needs a credential. "Keep in mind that not all content requires specialized expertise."

The "who" questions Google asks about your content

Google's page is a self-assessment, not a list of ranking factors. It suggests judging your content by "Who, How, and Why." The "who" part has three questions:

• "Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content?"
• "Do pages carry a byline, where one might be expected?"
• "Do bylines lead to further information about the author or authors involved, giving background about them and the areas they write about?"

Google then adds: "We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it." Another question on the same page asks whether content offers "background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site's About page?"

Notice the verbs. Google encourages bylines where a reader would expect one, such as a blog post or a guide. You do not need one on every page.

What these pages can and can't do for AI answers

Google's documentation on Organization, profile page and Article markup describes how each helps Google Search understand a business or an author. None of those documents mentions AI answers. For its AI features, Google says "There's also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add." Its guide to generative AI features lists "Overfocusing on structured data" among the things you can ignore, and adds that structured data is still a good idea because it helps with eligibility for rich results. As of October 2026, we also found no statement in the crawler and search help pages of OpenAI, Anthropic or Perplexity that author pages or markup change what their assistants cite.

So here is what you can fairly expect:

• Clarity. Your About page is where your own facts live in one place. Google says Organization markup can help it "better understand your organization's administrative details and disambiguate your organization in search results." Disambiguate means telling you apart from another business with a similar name. Our guide to what entities are explains why that matters.
• Trust for human readers. A buyer who arrives from an AI answer still decides on your site. A named owner, a real address and checkable credentials help that decision.
• Accurate source material. Any system that reads your page can only repeat what is on it. If your founding year, license or service area is stated nowhere, nothing can quote it.

What you cannot expect is a documented boost in citations. Be cautious with any vendor who promises one.

What to put on your About page

Write the page for a stranger deciding whether to trust you. Every item below should be true, specific and checkable.

What to put on author and team pages

Give each person who writes or reviews content a page of their own, and link every byline to it. A useful author page has:

• The person's real name and current role at your company.
• A real photo, or no photo. Never a stock image or a generated face.
• Relevant experience in the field.
• Credentials that exist and can be checked, such as a license, a degree or a certification.
• The topics they write about, with links to their articles.
• Links to their real professional profiles.

For health, legal and financial topics, many sites add a "Reviewed by" line naming a qualified reviewer. One of Google's self-check questions is: "Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?" Add the line only when the review really happened.

If you are a one-person business, you do not need a team directory. A single About page that covers you properly is enough. Google's profile page documentation lists an "About Me" page on a blog and "An employee page on a company website" among its valid uses.

Never invent people or credentials

This is the one hard rule. Google's guidance says: "Fabricating creator profiles (such as by using AI-generated headshots, made-up names, or false credentials to make content appear as if it was written by human experts) is a form of deception. Any form of deception makes a page untrustworthy to both users and our automated quality systems, and is a signal of a low-quality page."

The structured data rules repeat the point: "Don't impersonate any person or organization, or misrepresent your ownership, affiliation, or primary purpose."

There is a consumer protection angle too. The FTC's Endorsement Guides say that when an advertisement presents an endorser as an expert, "the endorser's qualifications must in fact give the endorser the expertise that the endorser is represented as possessing." This is general information, not legal advice. If you are unsure how your team is presented, ask an attorney.

Structured data for the business and its authors

Structured data is a standardized format for describing a page to search engines. Three types apply here. Each links to Google's documentation.

Three rules apply to all of it. First, mark up only what a reader can see: "Don't mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page." Second, markup guarantees nothing: "Using structured data enables a feature to be present, it does not guarantee that it will be present." Third, stay within what is documented. Properties such as founder, knowsAbout or alumniOf are valid schema.org vocabulary, but Google's pages for these features do not list them. Add them if they are accurate, and don't count on Google using them.

The links to profiles on other sites use a property called sameAs. Our guide to Wikidata and Wikipedia for GEO covers what it does and doesn't do.

AI-assisted content and disclosure

Google does not require you to disclose AI use. Its wording is: "AI or automation disclosures are useful for content where someone might think "How was this created?" Consider adding these when it would be reasonably expected." In February 2023, Google also said that "Giving AI an author byline is probably not the best way" to make AI involvement clear to readers.

The firm instruction is about accuracy. Google's generative AI guidance says: "It is critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing." If a named person's byline is on a page, that person should have read it. Our article on the role of human editors describes a workable review step.

A practical order of work

1. Write your core facts down once: name, address, phone, founding year, licenses, owners. Use that record everywhere.
2. Rewrite the About page using the table above.
3. Create a page for each author and reviewer, and link every byline to it.
4. Add Organization markup to the home or About page, profile page markup to author pages, and author details to article markup. Check that every value also appears in the visible text.
5. Make your profiles and listings on other sites match the same facts.
6. Review the pages when staff, licenses or addresses change.

If your site is new, our guide to GEO for a new website shows where these pages fit. Trust is also built off your site, and digital PR for GEO covers that side.

Conclusion

About and author pages make it plain who runs your business and who stands behind your content. Google encourages that, treats fake authors as deception, and promises nothing in return for markup. Do the work because readers and machines both need accurate facts about you, stated in one place. If you would like an outside review of your website's structure and visibility, request a free GEO audit. More guides are in our GEO and AEO Guide.

Frequently asked questions