Which profile pages qualify for Google's ProfilePage markup?

Definition: Google's ProfilePage structured data documentation defines an eligible profile page as one whose primary focus is a single person or organization affiliated with the overall website. The page represents that subject directly, with mainEntity identifying the person or organization.

Key facts

• Google requires the page's primary focus to be one person or organization affiliated with the overall website, and lists forum profiles, news-site author pages, blog About Me pages, and company employee pages as examples in its ProfilePage documentation.
• Schema.org defines mainEntity as the primary entity described in a page or other creative work, which matches the role Google assigns to the profile subject in ProfilePage.
• Google's general policy requires structured data to represent visible, relevant page content and forbids misrepresenting ownership, affiliation, or primary purpose in its structured data guidelines.

Which pages fit Google's ProfilePage definition?

Google describes ProfilePage markup for sites where creators, either people or organizations, share first-hand perspectives. Its valid examples are a user profile on a forum or social media site, an author page on a news site, an About Me page on a blog, and an employee page on a company website. Each example has a page dedicated to one identifiable subject connected to the site.

Google's invalid examples clarify the boundary. A store's main home page usually contains substantial non-profile information, so it is not a profile page example. An organization review site also fails the affiliation example when the reviewed organization is not associated with the website.

What does affiliation and primary focus mean?

Affiliation is an explicit condition: the person or organization represented by the profile must be affiliated with the overall website. A page about an organization can therefore describe that organization without qualifying when the site has no stated association with it. The page's subject also has to remain its primary focus, rather than being an incidental entity in a broader page.

Google's general structured data policy says to avoid irrelevant or misleading markup, including content unrelated to the focus of a page. It also says structured data must not misrepresent ownership, affiliation, or primary purpose. These rules apply alongside the ProfilePage-specific condition.

How should a site identify the profile subject?

Google requires mainEntity to be a Person or an Organization. The property identifies the person or organization the profile page is about and indicates that the page's primary focus is information about that entity. Use the type that matches the subject when that information is available; Google's documentation says to default to Person for an unknown account type.

The subject also needs a name. Google describes it as the primary way to identify the person or organization, recommends real names in name, and gives alternateName as the field for a social media handle when appropriate. sameAs can point to other external profiles or home pages for the profile.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "ProfilePage",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@id": "#main-author",
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Marlo Smith"
  }
}

Schema.org describes ProfilePage as a web page type and defines mainEntity as the primary entity described in a page or other creative work.

What should be checked on the rendered page?

The profile subject must be visible to readers. Google's general guidelines say that if JSON-LD describes a person or performer, the HTML body must describe that same subject. The structured data page must also remain accessible to Googlebot, without a robots.txt block, a noindex directive, or another access-control method.

Related terms

• Author profile page
• Person structured data
• Schema.org sameAs

FAQ

Can an author page qualify for ProfilePage markup?

Yes, when it focuses on one author affiliated with the website. Google lists an author page on a news site as a valid example.

Can you mark up a store home page as a profile page?

Google gives a store's main home page as an invalid example when it contains substantial non-profile information. A page needs the single affiliated person or organization as its primary focus.

Does a review page about an organization qualify?

Google's invalid example is an organization review site where the organization is not associated with the website. The affiliation condition therefore matters alongside the subject of the review.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, "Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data", 8 September 2026
2. Google Search Central, "General structured data guidelines", 10 July 2026
3. Schema.org, "ProfilePage", undated

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