How to Fix Missing: author Error from Blogger Template?

In your Google Search Console you might see an error that missing: author. This error can be found in Google Webmaster Tools -> Search Appearance -> Structured Data- > hentry (markup: microformats.org). However for confirmation you can test your Blog by Google structure data testing tool.  After testing your Blogger template on Google structure data testing tools if you see this is displaying an error then you must fix this error as soon as possible.

The origin of this error is a hatom error under microformats.org markup. This error means search engine can’t understand the Blog Author. Formerly there was great impact of author on search engine. Because Author image often got visibility beside of content link on search engine. And this feature was known as Google’s Rich snippet error. If Google search robot can’t identify the author image then they don’t show the author image on search engine.

However now this system has changed and after evolving Google Plus now author image is displaying on search engine through Google Plus shared content. Google search Robot or spider whatever visit our site then they try to understand our site thus they can display on search engine result page fruitfully. But if this machine can’t read your Blog then your site may not get frequent visibility on search engine result page.

Though this is a less important SEO related issue but we should make our template error free. To solve this issue please follow the below tutorial-

Step 1 Go to https://www.blogger.com and Sign in to your account

Step 2 From Blogger Dashboard click on ->Template ->Edit HTML 

Step 3 And locate script like below from your Blogger template

<span class='post-author vcard' >
                    <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
                      <b:if cond='data:post.authorProfileUrl'>
                        <span class='fn'>
                          <a expr:href='data:post.authorProfileUrl' rel='author' title='author profile'>
                            <data:post.author/>
                          </a>
                        </span>
                      <b:else/>
                        <span class='fn'><data:post.author/></span>
                      </b:if>
                    </b:if>
                  </span>

Note that the code maybe not matches exactly like above but locate similar code like above from your Blogger template.

Step 4 Finally replace the above code by below script.

<span class='post-author vcard'>
                <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
                  <b:if cond='data:post.authorProfileUrl'>
                  <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>  
                      <meta expr:content='data:post.authorProfileUrl' itemprop='url'/>
                      <a class='g-profile' expr:href='data:post.authorProfileUrl' rel='author' title='author profile'>
                        <span itemprop='name'><data:post.author/></span>
                      </a>
                    </span>
                  <b:else/>
                    <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
                      <span itemprop='name'><data:post.author/></span>
                    </span>
                  </b:if>
                </b:if>
              </span>

Step 5 Now simply hit the Save template button.

I have added a special feature in this script which is currently using in my template. When a visitor will mouse over on your name then your Google Plus profile will show up. This will help the search Robot to understand your site and details about you from your Google Plus page.

Now check your Blog URL on https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/ and see the result that error has gone.

Generally microformats.org vocabulary can understand and read by all major search engines. In this script you will see a little change. I have denoted the author by below markup.

• http://schema.org/Person

This means the whole script is for author or Blog writer, admin whatever search robot will understand easily.

And for easy understanding I have added itemprop='author' which will give additional information to search robot about the Blog author.

After applying this script it will take 3 to 4 days to take effect. Because you have to wait until search Robot visit and crawl your site, so be patient. 

After few days check your Blog data from Google Webmaster Tools -> Search Appearance -> Structured Data- > hentry (markup: microformats.org) and see the error is reducing. I hope this tutorial help you to improve your Blog SEO. Happy Blogging!!!