Title: Fix Google Webmaster Missing: author error in single.php
Last modified: August 31, 2016

---

# Fix Google Webmaster Missing: author error in single.php

 *  [mcnaden](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mcnaden/)
 * (@mcnaden)
 * [10 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fix-google-webmaster-missing-author-error-in-singlephp/)
 * Hi,
 * Trying to edit our theme to solve the google webmaster error for “Missing: author”
 * I found elsewhere that
 *     ```
       <span class="vcard author">
       <span class="fn"><?php the_author(); ?></span>
       </span>
       ```
   
 * should replace
 *     ```
       <span class="theauthor"><?php the_author(); ?></span>
       ```
   
 * in single.php. But our author entry is a bit more complicated (see below). Could
   anyone suggest how to modify our code to make it google compliant?
 *     ```
       <?php
                       printf(__('<span class="by-author"> <span class="sep"> by </span> <span class="author vcard">%3$s</span></span>', 'twentyeleven'), esc_url(get_author_posts_url(get_the_author_meta('ID'))), esc_attr(sprintf(__('View all posts by %s', 'twentyeleven'), get_the_author())), get_the_author()
                       );
                       ?>
       ```
   
 * Many thanks for any advice. Best,
    Mark

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## Tags

 * [author](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/author/)
 * [webmaster](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/webmaster/)

 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [mcnaden](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mcnaden/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fix-google-webmaster-missing-author-error-in-singlephp/)
 * Status: not resolved

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