Which content fields are required for a forum post?

Definition: For a DiscussionForumPosting in Google Search structured data, a forum post needs an author, the publication date and time, and at least one content property: text, image, or video. Google also lists author.name as required.

Key facts

• Google's Discussion Forum documentation says required properties make content eligible for usage in Google Search.
• Schema.org describes DiscussionForumPosting as a posting to a discussion forum.
• Google's required properties include author and author.name, with author.name holding the name of the post author.
• datePublished records the date and time the post was made in ISO 8601 format.
• The post content must use text, image, or video; Google's documentation also allows a forum posting that consists only of media content.

Which fields are required?

Google's required-property table names author, author.name, datePublished, and an either-or content field. The author value is a Person or Organization, author.name is text, and datePublished is a date and time in ISO 8601 format. The content choice is text, image, or video.

The minimum shape can be represented in JSON-LD like this:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DiscussionForumPosting",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Author name"
  },
  "datePublished": "YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ",
  "text": "Post text"
}

The text property in this example can be replaced by image or video when that property represents the post content. A media-only post is covered by Google's statement that a forum posting can consist only of media content.

What do the content alternatives describe?

Google says text contains any text in the post and can be left out when the post has other media. The image property describes inline images. If the post has no images, the documentation says to omit default, icon, placeholder and author images from that field. The video property describes inline videos.

Schema.org's sharedContent property covers a CreativeWork such as an image or video shared as part of the posting. That property describes shared material, while Google's required content choice identifies the post's text, image or video representation.

How should author and datePublished be typed?

Google's table accepts a Person or Organization for author and requires author.name for the author's name. The documentation recommends using its author markup best practices and including author properties that make sense for the person or organization.

Schema.org lists Organization or Person as the expected types for author. For datePublished, Schema.org accepts Date or DateTime and defines it as the date of first publication or broadcast. Google's Search requirement is more specific for a forum post: the date and time the post was made in ISO 8601 format.

Related terms

• Structured data
• JSON-LD
• Person structured data
• Article structured data

FAQ

Is text required for every forum post?

No. Google requires one of text, image, or video, and its documentation says a forum posting can consist only of media content.

Is author.name the same as author?

No. author identifies the author as a Person or Organization; author.name supplies that author's name. Both appear in Google's required-property table.

Can an author image fill the image field?

No. Google's image guidance says to omit author images from the post's image field when the post has no inline images.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, "Discussion Forum (DiscussionForumPosting, SocialMediaPosting) Schema Markup", 8 September 2026
2. Schema.org, "DiscussionForumPosting", 16 September 2026

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