Google Webmaster Tools Errors – Missing Author, Missing Updated

Anyone got a solution to this recurring problem? I’m desperate, and most posts talking of a fix don’t seem to work on the Twenty Fifteen theme.
Please help!
Luke. Australia.

I’m In the same boat. Updated missing and author missing on my pages.

Same here … have searched & tried many bits of code to fix this error, all to no avail:( Also considering scrapping all the work done on this theme so far and starting over. I’m surprised it’s so hard to find a fix for such a popular base theme.

Hello. I’m using a modified version of Twenty Eleven Theme. This will work on Twenty Fifteen, or any theme that doesn’t employ Author, Post Date etc. It works for me perfectly!

1. Add this at the end of the ‘function.php’ file:

/* Fix “Missing Author” and “Missing Updated” issue – START */
add_filter( ‘the_content’, ‘custom_author_code’);
function custom_author_code($content) {
if (is_singular() || is_single()) {
return $content .
‘<div class=”hatom-extra”><span class=”title”>’. get_the_title() .'</span> was last updated <span class=”updated”> ‘. get_the_modified_time(‘F jS, Y’) .'</span> by <span class=”author vcard”><span class=”fn”>’. get_the_author() .'</span></span></div>’ ;
} else {
return $content;
}
}
/* Fix “Missing Author” and “Missing Updated” issue – END */

/* Fix “Missing Entry Title” issue – START */
//add hatom data
function add_suf_hatom_data($content) {
$t = get_the_modified_time(‘F jS, Y’);
$author = get_the_author();
$title = get_the_title();
if (is_home() || is_singular() || is_archive() ) {
$content .= ‘<div class=”hatom-extra” style=”display:none;visibility:hidden;”><span class=”entry-title”>’.$title.'</span> was last modified: <span class=”updated”> ‘.$t.'</span> by <span class=”author vcard”><span class=”fn”>’.$author.'</span></span></div>’;
}
return $content;
}
add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘add_suf_hatom_data’);
/* Fix “Missing Entry Title” issue – END */

2. Add this to your ‘Custom CSS’. If you don’t have it, just search and install WP Add Custom CSS plugin (author daniele de santis):

/* Customise hatom structure */
.hatom-extra {
font-style: none;
color: #444444;
font-size: 10px;
margin-top: 6px;
margin-bottom: 6px;
padding-top: 10px;
padding-left: 0px;
}

3. Jump onto Google Webmaster Console and fetch your website. Wait a couple of days, and slowly but surely, the Google console errors will disappear as Google crawls your site.

Good luck.
Luke.

Thank you Luke!!!

This is the best result I’ve had so far from trying numerous bits of code (I am far from being a competent coder myself, but I can cut & paste ok and I’m starting to slowly absorb a few whiffs of what does what).

Using the Google structured data testing tool, your instructions seem to have added the author/updated fields to all but one of my pages. I’ll poke around later to try to figure out why the last one hasn’t been fixed.

The code has also however appended another line to the bottom of each page – along the lines of “Services was last updated by Al” where ‘services’ is the name of the page and ‘Al’ is the author.

Site is handyal.ca btw.

Anyway, this is clearly the best step forward so far so thanks again Luke!!!

Hey again.
Happy it worked.

Update – I don’t know why the one page wasn’t working on the structured data tool originally, when I went to check again later they were all working, so even better!

I seem to have gotten rid of the extra text line appearing at the bottom of the pages by making two changes to the functions.php code posted by Luke above. First I added this bit found in the second section of that code:

style=”display:none;visibility:hidden;”

to the corresponding location in the first section. Then I added these bits from the second section:

is_home() ||
|| is_archive()

to the corresponding locations in the first section as well.

So that whole piece of code then now looks like this:

/* Fix “Missing Author” and “Missing Updated” issue – START */
add_filter( ‘the_content’, ‘custom_author_code’);
function custom_author_code($content) {
if (is_home() || is_singular() || is_single() || is_archive()) {
return $content .
‘<div class=”hatom-extra” style=”display:none;visibility:hidden;”><span class=”title”>’. get_the_title() .'</span> was last updated <span class=”updated”> ‘. get_the_modified_time(‘F jS, Y’) .'</span> by <span class=”author vcard”><span class=”fn”>’. get_the_author() .'</span></span></div>’ ;
} else {
return $content;
}
}
/* Fix “Missing Author” and “Missing Updated” issue – END */

/* Fix “Missing Entry Title” issue – START */
//add hatom data
function add_suf_hatom_data($content) {
$t = get_the_modified_time(‘F jS, Y’);
$author = get_the_author();
$title = get_the_title();
if (is_home() || is_singular() || is_archive() ) {
$content .= ‘<div class=”hatom-extra” style=”display:none;visibility:hidden;”><span class=”entry-title”>’.$title.'</span> was last modified: <span class=”updated”> ‘.$t.'</span> by <span class=”author vcard”><span class=”fn”>’.$author.'</span></span></div>’;
}
return $content;
}
add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘add_suf_hatom_data’);
/* Fix “Missing Entry Title” issue – END */

As noted above, I am no coder so use at your own risk & I probably broke something else that I just haven’t noticed yet, but my fingers are crossed that this has done the trick:)

Thanks again Luke!!!

Further update, the hatom author & updated errors have indeed cleaned themselves up in the google console structured data.

I have the same issue but only with tags, categories and authors (category/news for example). I am using a plugin to fix the problem everywhere else on my site (i.e. I am not getting any missing:updated, missing:author or missing:entry-title errors on any pages on my site) but when I use the Sturctured Data Testing tool any one of these:

/category/(name of category)
/tag/(name of tag)
/author/(name of author)

has the “missing:updated” error.

Since each of these can have several posts associated with them (i.e. the “author” could have written several posts) when you do the structured data test you see a published date for each, but not an updated date; however, you do see the entry-title and author information of the individual posts associated with the author/category/tag in question yet and thus I am not getting the missing:author and missing:entry title errors for any of these, just the missing:updated.

If however you test the individual posts that are attached to any of these, you see an “updated” date as opposed to a “published” date and thus the posts themselves to not have errors.

Been searching high and low for answers and have gotten a bunch….but no actual fix.