Should the author
tag be the author of the content of the page, or the author of the HTML (if these were different)?
The spec (w3/moz) doesn't help to clarify for me.
(I appreciate it may have no SEO value.)
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, as one of the standard metadata names, is defined in the HTML spec:
The value must be a free-form string giving the name of one of the page’s authors.
There is nothing else to its definition, so authors as well as consumers of the markup have to base their use just on this sentence.
In my opinion, "page author" refers to the content author. Reasons why:
designer
) and the "technical design" (web_author
).I'm in the habit of listing my own name (as the website designer). If the content of the page contains an article, then information about the author of the article should be included in an aside on the page (if this fits your design structure).
Of course, you can clarify the role of the person if you use "web_author" instead. The purpose of the tag was so that credit for (and questions about) the design could be directed to the correct person/company.