Prove human authorship: a decision tree for SEO pages
Nobody can certify that you typed every word. You can leave a trail that a sceptical editor, client or reader would accept, and the branches below say which trail fits your situation.
NoAISEO research team ·
It will not make Google trust you and it will not beat an AI detector. Authorship evidence is for people: clients, editors, commissioning desks, readers. Google's public guidance has no form where you upload it.
Answer five questions, in order
Do you have the drafts?
If yes, export the Google Docs version history or the Git log, with dates, and store it beside the published URL. If no, start today: every page gets a dated first draft saved before it goes live. Older pages can only be defended with notes and memory.
Is there a named author?
If yes, check that the bio page lists real credentials, a photo you took yourself and one way to reach the person. If the byline says 'Staff', decide whether that is honest, then say who edits.
Does the page hold something only you could know?
If yes, keep the original photo, the invoice, the log file. If no, add one before publishing. A paragraph of first-hand detail does more for the reader than ten paragraphs of polish.
Did a tool touch the text?
Spellcheck, Grammarly, DeepL and dictation all count. Name them in one plain sentence. An honest, narrow statement survives scrutiny; a blanket 'no tools at all' collapses the first time someone checks.
Will anyone actually ask?
If a client contract demands it, add a clause and send the history on request. If a publication asks, send the same. If nobody does, still archive the trail, because it takes five minutes.
Evidence, ranked by how hard it is to fake
| Evidence | Effort to fake | Persuades | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dated version history | High | Editors, clients | Pasted-in text leaves a single big edit |
| Git commit log for a docs site | High | Technical readers | Only fits writers who work in repositories |
| Original photos with their files | Medium | Readers, press desks | Metadata is stripped by many platforms |
| Named, contactable byline | Medium | Everyone | Only as good as the person answering the email |
| Tool disclosure line | Low | Cautious clients | A statement, not proof |
| AI detector score | Meaningless | Nobody who has checked | OpenAI withdrew its own classifier in July 2023 |
Why the trail beats the claim
A sentence saying 'written by a human' costs nothing to type. That is its flaw. A version history showing 41 sessions over nine days, with edits, cuts and a late rewrite of the opening, is slow to fabricate and quick to read.
The reason to prove human authorship is rarely a search engine. It is a client who asked, a magazine with a policy, or your own wish to say 'I stand behind this'. Nothing stops you. Google, for its part, has said it judges helpfulness rather than the production method, in its February 2023 guidance.
One caution. A trail shows process, not quality. Pages with a perfect history can still be thin, and the E-E-A-T myths explain why authorship alone moves nothing. Links do something different again, and the comparison shows what.
Before the page goes live
- First draft saved with a date, outside the CMS
- Version history switched on in Google Docs or a Git repository on GitHub, not just the final copy
- Byline links to a bio with a way to make contact
- Original media filed under the page's slug
- Tool line written: spellcheck, grammar help, translation, dictation
- A reminder set to review the change note after each edit
- A copy of the published page saved on the day it went live