How can Open Graph describe article authors, sections and tags?

Definition: The Open Graph article namespace adds article:author, article:section and article:tag to an object whose type is article. The protocol defines authors as profile values in an array, the section as a high-level string, and tags as string values in an array, as stated in the Open Graph protocol specification.

Key facts

• The article type uses the namespace URI https://ogp.me/ns/article#, according to the Open Graph protocol specification.
• article:author is a profile array whose values represent the writers of the article.
• article:section is a string for a high-level section name, with “Technology” given as the specification's example.
• article:tag is a string array for tag words associated with the article.
• Open Graph represents multiple values by placing multiple versions of the same meta tag on the page. The first tag from top to bottom has preference during conflicts.
• The W3C RDFa 1.1 Primer describes a property attribute value as a list of values, which is consistent with the repeated-value form used by Open Graph.

What does each article field mean?

The Open Graph specification groups these properties under the article type. article:author carries the writers and is typed as profile plus array, so an article can have more than one author value. article:section is typed only as string and describes a high-level section name. The specification uses “Technology” as its example, which makes this field suitable for a broad editorial area rather than a list of keywords.

article:tag is typed as string plus array and represents tag words associated with the article. The distinction is therefore in the protocol's field definitions: authors and tags are arrays, while section is a single string field. The article namespace URI is https://ogp.me/ns/article#.

How are repeated authors and tags written?

The Open Graph protocol specification says that a tag with multiple values uses multiple versions of the same meta tag, and that the first value from top to bottom has preference during conflicts. Apply that array form to each author and each tag by repeating the property and changing the content value. The W3C primer similarly says that RDFa permits a property attribute to contain a list of values.

article:section is documented as a string, so it is the singular field in this group. Repeating article:author creates more author values, and repeating article:tag creates more tag values. The order rule matters when the same array property is declared more than once with conflicting values.

What does the HTML pattern look like?

The protocol says that its initial version is based on RDFa and that additional meta tags belong in the page's head. A field-level pattern for the article properties is:

<html prefix="og: https://ogp.me/ns# article: https://ogp.me/ns/article#">
<head>
  <meta property="og:type" content="article" />
  <meta property="article:author" content="https://example.com/alice" />
  <meta property="article:author" content="https://example.com/bob" />
  <meta property="article:section" content="Technology" />
  <meta property="article:tag" content="Open Graph" />
  <meta property="article:tag" content="metadata" />
</head>
</html>

The property attribute names the Open Graph field and content carries its value. The namespace declaration identifies the Open Graph vocabulary and its article namespace; the protocol's own examples use the same property and content form for metadata in the head.

How can the markup be checked?

Check that the page declares og:type as article, uses the article property names exactly, and repeats only the fields that the specification marks as arrays. Check that each article:author value represents a profile, that the section value is a high-level string such as “Technology”, and that each tag is a separate article:tag value. Preserve the top-to-bottom order when a repeated property has a conflict, because the Open Graph specification assigns preference to the first tag.

Related terms

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

FAQ

Can you list more than one article author?

Yes. Use one article:author meta element for each profile value. The Open Graph specification marks the property as an array.

Can you put several tags in one article:tag value?

The protocol models article:tag as a string array. Use repeated article:tag elements so each tag is a separate array value.

Is article:section a repeated field?

No array type is assigned to it in the specification. Use the string field for the article's high-level section, such as “Technology”.

Sources

1. Open Graph protocol, "The Open Graph protocol", undated
2. W3C, "RDFa 1.1 Primer - Third Edition", 2015-03-17

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