MIssing three needed taxonomies in three .hatom categories

Dear Folks of WordPress,

I am a relatively new www.remarpro.com user who has migrated from WordPress.com. (I moved in early May.) When it comes to code— all code— I am essentially an idiot. However, I would like to learn as much as I can as well as I can as quickly as I can— so I am reading like mad and trying to implement what I read as best I can.

That said, I hope I am able to explain my issue correctly.

Okay, here’s one of my myriad problems: I am missing HAtom taxonomies for titles, author and updated— in three of my categories.

The error in Google’s Structured Data Testing tool specifically says:

Error: Missing required field “entry-title”.
Error: Missing required field “updated”.
Error: Missing required hCard “author”.

What’s odd is that this problem appears to be turning up on three categories, but only three categories. Not specific posts, not tags, and not all of the 20-or-so categories on my site.

It doesn’t seem to be particular to the theme I am using, but an older theme I was using up until very recently may have been either the initiating issue, or a primary contributing factor, or incidental to a bigger issue that I caused myself.

Background information:

Up until two days ago, I was using a really nice theme that may have accidentally blocked all of my .hatom data (according to Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.)

At first, I didn’t think the theme I was using might be the reason for my missing .hatom information, but I did contact the theme developer asking if there was a way to include author information on a single-author blog, hoping that adding author info to individual posts might correct my missing .hatom author info. (The theme is designed to give author information on specific posts on multi-author blogs only, and I don’t know enough code to adjust this setting in the functions.php/post.php myself.)

When I did not hear back from the theme developer for a week about making that adjustment, I got rather nervous about being penalized by Google, and decided to test my structured data using the Twenty Twelve theme just to see if any of my missing .hatom information would show up. (And I realize theme developers are busy people, so I totally get why I wouldn’t get a response.)

Fewer than five minutes after making the switch to Twenty Twelve, I tested my site using Google’s Structured Data Tester, and wouldn’t you know it most of the missing .hatom information was, for the most part, viewable to Google! Most, that is, except for the three items I am mentioning to you today.

So, I don’t know if that theme really did cause some of the problems I am having now, or if it was incidental to some wack-a-doo issue I managed to create for myself (which is totally, entirely possible because I have mastered the dubious art of breaking my site, repeatedly, with immense vigor.) But it still seems odd that just switching themes would cause almost all of my .hatom data to show up really quickly.

Back to the current problem:

As I said, I switched to Twenty Twelve for testing purposes two days ago. Last night I changed yet again to a new-to-me theme appropriate to the content of my blog. (I did some additional research beforehand on the new theme to make sure it would not add to my .hatom confusion.)

Once more— the specific category taxonomies I mentioned were missing when I had switched Twenty Twelve two days ago and tested it with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. Now, I am using this current new theme and the same data is missing. So, that doesn’t appear to be the root cause.

Today, to make sure the newest theme wasn’t adding to my .hatom blues, I switched back to Twenty Twelve again and tested my site. Same missing data from original switch to Twenty Twelve, no change.

I would love to fix my .hatom blues.

Any instructions/suggestions/reading you can provide on this matter will be most appreciated.

I really, really hope I explained my issue correctly. If I have not, please forgive my lack of knowledge and do feel free to correct me— I am trying to learn as fast as I can.

Thanks so much for your help.

Best wishes,

Courtenay Bluebird