Search console "author" field missing: (+1,000% increase

I’m getting this error after the last update. I would be happy if this error is corrected.

Error message:

Search Console has detected a recent significant increase in the number of items on your site affected by the following critical Discussion forum structured data issues:
“author” field missing: (+1,000% increase)
This change may significantly impact your site’s performance in Google Search. Visit Search Console for more data to help you optimize your search traffic.

1 Like

Me-too-ing this one. I got an email from Google Search Console about the same thing: unstructured forum data, author field missing, critical error that means your content cannot be indexed.

@ozkn and @jimsalterjrs can you share a URL where this issue happens? Are you running latest Discourse? Meta appears unnafected per https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=6onjJwZEQ9W9xHZChAFN9g

1 Like

This is kinda boomery, attaching a screenshot from my Google Search Console, but it seems like the best quick overview to give you an idea of what you might want to know more about:

Clickable URL to the page that Google Search Console offered as an example of the issue: Pull backup from a TrueNAS system to Synology - #2 by mercenary_sysadmin - TrueNAS - Practical ZFS

I have some too

But I think 100% of the pages here don’t point to the first post of a topic, ex
example.com/t/1000/12 or example.com/t/1000?page=3

Here is a modified version of the url provided by @Falco

https://meta.discourse.org/t/discussion-forum-schema-improvements/287347/3
https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=eqG8L2hOW6DmI6ME_8dqJg

@david this is caused by the new SEO single page post crawler view, see https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=OhMiTptWFYsjunlEGW5bTg

2 Likes

Thanks everyone! Here’s a fix:

4 Likes