Google now counts made-up author names on your blog as deception

What Google's help page now says about authors

Open the newest article on your own website and click the name printed under the title. Look at who it is, whether the photo shows a face you know, and whether the title or letters on the name match a license someone on your staff holds. Google's help page for site owners, updated on 5 October 2026, now has a paragraph that covers each of those things.

The page is called Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, and its footer shows that 5 October update date. Here's the new paragraph, word for word:

"However, avoid using deceptive authorship information. 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."

So a made-up name, an AI-made photo or a credential nobody holds now counts as deception when it's used to dress up an article. (A credential is the title or letters attached to a name, like Dr. or RN.) Google says a page like that loses trust with readers and with its own software that grades pages, and it calls that a sign of a weak page.

This is Google's guidance, and it covers Google Search only. The page names no sites, and it says nothing about what happens to a page like that in the results. I haven't found anything published on how ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude read the name under a post.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reported the change on 6 October. In his write-up he recalls a time when Google said faked author details were of little concern to it. Times seem to have changed, he writes.

The same part of the page tells site owners what Google would like to see. Google writes: "We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it." A byline is the name printed under the title. So Google wants a name on each article, and a true one.

Google then asks a question about that name: "Do bylines lead to further information about the author or authors involved, giving background about them and the areas they write about?" Click the name. It should lead to a page that says who this person is and what they write about.

Whose pages to check first

The owners this reaches first are the ones who never wrote their own blog. Maybe an agency handles the website, or you bought a content package that came with posts already written. (That's a normal setup, to be fair.) But in either case, you may never have looked at whose name went on top, or asked where the photo came from.

Google's page also says its software gives extra weight to pages people can trust when the topic could seriously affect a person's health, money or safety.

Google names no trade there, so what follows is my own reading, and I could be wrong. To me, a page about a dental implant, a filler treatment or choosing home care for a parent looks like that kind of page. A reader may make a health decision after reading it. If that's right, those are the pages to check first.

The ten-minute check on your own site

This is what I read first now when I open a business's website: the name under the title, then where it leads. You can do the same check tonight on your phone. Pick your last three blog posts (or the three pages a new patient or client is most likely to read) and go through them one at a time.

1. Read the name under the title. Write down whether it belongs to someone on your staff, or to someone who read the page before it went live. If you've never heard of the person, note that too.
2. Click the name. See whether it opens a page that says who the person is and what they write about. A name that leads nowhere fails the question Google asks.
3. Look at the photo. Check that it shows the person named. If you can't place the face, ask whoever built the site where the picture came from.
4. Check the title or letters on the name. If the byline says Dr., RN or any other title, match it to a license or degree that person holds.
5. Ask who wrote the words. Your agency or content vendor can tell you who drafted the page and whether anyone checked it before it went up. Send the question tonight, even if the answer takes a few days.

The page may carry a named person and a short bio, in which case you can move on. A team name such as "the clinic team" is honest enough. Thin, though. It tells a reader very little about who checked the page. The case Google's paragraph describes is a name or a photo that nobody in your office can account for, and that's the one I'd worry about.

If I paid every month for blog content, I'd want a straight answer about whose name goes on it, and why.

Put a real name on every page

Ask the person who knows the work to read the page from top to bottom. That might be the dentist, the nurse injector, the care coordinator or the office manager. Pick whoever would answer the same question if a customer asked it at the front desk. They correct anything wrong, and then their name goes under the title.

Give that name a short bio page. Two or three sentences will do, covering their role and how long they've done the work. Use a photo of them, even one taken on a phone against a plain wall. If they hold a license or a degree that fits the topic, list it the way it reads on the certificate.

If nobody on your staff can stand behind a page, say plainly on the page who wrote it, or take it down. When nobody will put their name on a post, it can mean nobody at your business has checked it. Better to find that out before a customer does.

Google's separate page on AI-written content, updated on 1 October, points the same way. It says: "It is critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing." It adds that the review also covers the title and the short description shown in search results.

An agency or an AI tool can still draft your posts, as long as a person who knows the work reads each one and puts their own name under the title. Open your newest post tonight and click the name. In ten minutes you'll know whether your site has a problem here.