Structured Data for SEO

TL;DR — Structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. is extra code you add to a page that labels what your content means — “this is the price,” “this is the author,” “this is the cook time” — so search engines don’t have to guess. It uses a shared vocabulary called schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor., usually written in a format called JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal.. It can make your page eligible for fancier search listings (star ratings, product cards), but it does not make your page rank higher.

What structured data is

When you look at a web page, you can tell a phone number from a price from an author’s name just by looking. A search engine can’t — it mostly sees text. Structured data is extra code you add to a page that spells it out for machines: “this part is the product name,” “this is the rating,” “this is the publish date.”

It uses a shared dictionary called schema.org — a vocabulary that Google, Microsoft (Bing), Yahoo, and Yandex agreed on together — so publishers can use the same labels across consumers. Evidence for this claim Schema.org provides a shared vocabulary for structured data, while JSON-LD is one supported encoding format. Scope: Schema.org vocabulary and Google structured-data guidance; this does not imply every type is eligible for a Google search feature. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Schema.org Most of the time it’s written in a format called JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal.: a small block of code that sits in the page’s HTML and describes the content without changing how the page looks to a visitor.

You’ll hear “structured data,” “schema markupSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor.,” and “schema.org” used almost interchangeably. Strictly: schema.org is the vocabulary, and structured data is the broad idea of machine-readable labels. In everyday SEO talk they mean the same thing.

          
            
            
          
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              "name": "Trail Shoes"
        
          
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Why it matters

Structured data does two useful jobs:

• Rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show.. When Google can read your labels clearly, your search listing can become eligible for an upgrade — star ratings under a review, a price and “in stock” on a product, a recipe’s cook time, breadcrumbsBreadcrumbs are a secondary navigation trail (Home > Category > Page) that shows where a page sits in a site's hierarchy. They create internal links that pass PageRank, and when marked up with BreadcrumbList structured data they can drive the path Google shows in desktop search results.. These are called rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show., and they can make people more likely to click your listing. Evidence for this claim Valid structured data can make a page eligible for Google search features, but Google does not guarantee that a rich result will appear. Scope: Google Search structured-data guidance; eligibility is distinct from display and ranking. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google: Structured data introduction
• Helping engines understand who you are. Markup like Organization and Person — especially a property called sameAs that links your brand or author to your Wikipedia or LinkedIn page — helps Google tell your “Apple” from the fruit, and your author from someone else with the same name.

The thing most people get wrong

Structured data does not directly improve your rankings. This is the single biggest myth. Adding schema doesn’t make a page rank higher for a keyword — Google’s John Mueller has said this many times. The benefit is indirect: a rich result can earn you more clicks, and clearer entity signals can help Google understand you. But there’s no “add schema, climb the rankings” lever.

Two more honest cautions:

• Rich results aren’t guaranteed. Even with perfect markup, Google decides whether to show the enhancement. You can do everything right and still get a plain blue link.
• Only mark up what’s actually on the page. Don’t add schema for content that isn’t visible to visitors — that breaks Google’s rules and can get you a penalty.

Want the deep version — the three formats, the full list of rich result types, which ones got removed, what explicit clues do and do not guarantee, and where to go next? Switch to the Advanced tab.

TL;DR — Structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. applies the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. vocabulary to your page in one of three formats — JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. (Google’s recommendation), Microdata, or RDFa. It gives search systems explicit clues and can make an eligible page available for supported search features. Neither appearance nor CTR is guaranteed, and it does not promise Knowledge GraphThe Knowledge Graph is Google's database of entities — people, places, organizations, and things — and the factual relationships between them. It's separate from any single website's structured data: your schema markup is one of many possible inputs to the graph, not the graph itself. inclusion, AI citationsAn AI citation is the visible source link an AI answer engine shows next to its generated text — the clickable reference that credits the web page it used. A citation's presence is a separate thing from whether the cited page actually supports the statement, and from being retrieved (read behind the scenes) or merely mentioned (named without a link); citation is driven more by brand mentions and being retrievable than by traditional ranking., or disambiguation. It is not a direct ranking factor — Mueller, repeatedly. The supported rich-result list keeps shrinking: FAQ and HowTo were gutted in 2023, seven more types removed June 2025, and the FAQ rich result was fully removed by May 2026. Only mark up visible content, prefer JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. in the raw HTML for the widest parser coverage, and keep every property, including sameAs, accurate and supported by the page.

What structured data is — vocabulary vs. format

Two things get conflated constantly, so let’s separate them up front:

• schema.org is the vocabulary — the shared dictionary of types (Product, Article, Recipe, Organization) and properties (price, author, cookTime, sameAs). It’s a collaborative project of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex, and it’s enormous — over 800 types. Google only supports a subset for rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show..
• JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa are the formats — the three ways to actually write that vocabulary into a page. They’re interchangeable carriers of the same meaning.

Google’s own definition: “Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content.”

The three formats — and why JSON-LD wins

All three work. Google recommends JSON-LD as “the easiest solution for website owners to implement and maintain at scale (in other words, less prone to user errors).” Evidence for this claim Google Search supports JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa for structured data and generally recommends JSON-LD. Scope: Google Search documentation; individual features can impose additional requirements. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google: Structured data introduction Because it’s a self-contained block, a typo doesn’t break your page layout, and you can add, update, or remove it without touching visible content.

One implementation caveat that bites people: JSON-LD can be injected with JavaScript (e.g., via Google Tag Manager), and Google documents support for JavaScript-generated structured data. Other crawlerA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index. providers generally do not publish a complete JavaScript-renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM. contract. If broad machine readability matters, render JSON-LD server-side so it is present in the raw HTML response — a coverage choice, not proof that every named AI crawlerAI crawlers are bots from AI companies that fetch web pages to train language models, build AI-search indexes, or answer live user questions. They come in three categories, each with its own user-agent tokens and its own robots.txt controls. is unable to execute JavaScript. I go deeper on that in Schema Markup for AISchema markup (structured data) is machine-readable code — usually JSON-LD — that labels what your content means using the schema.org vocabulary. For AI search it's infrastructure for entity disambiguation, not a direct citation lever: controlled studies found no meaningful uplift in AI citations from adding it..

What structured data can support

Supported use 1: search features. Structured data can make a page eligible for an enhanced SERP listing. Google’s case studies report outcomes for named implementations: Rotten Tomatoes saw a 25% higher CTR, Nestlé 82% higher CTR on rich-result pages, Food Network a 35% increase in visits. But note the word eligible — Google is explicit: “Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly.” Those case studies do not guarantee the same appearance or CTR change for another site.

Supported use 2: explicit clues. Beyond appearance, Google says it uses structured data to understand — “to gather information about the web and the world in general, such as information about the people, books, or companies that are included in the markup.” That statement does not promise a Knowledge PanelThe Knowledge Graph is Google's database of entities — people, places, organizations, and things — and the factual relationships between them. It's separate from any single website's structured data: your schema markup is one of many possible inputs to the graph, not the graph itself., Knowledge Graph inclusion, AI Overview association, brand-recognition change, or citation. sameAs identifies another URL about the same entity; use it accurately, but do not call it a guaranteed disambiguation lever.

The myth to kill: structured data is not a ranking factor

This is the accuracy spine of the whole topic. Structured data is not a direct ranking signal for organic results. John Mueller has confirmed this many times over the years. A page does not rank higher because it has schema. The SEO value is eligibility for supported search features and clearer machine-readable clues. Appearance, CTR impact, entity treatment, and ranking changes all require separate observation.

If a tool or agency sells you “add schema to rank higher,” they’ve got the mechanism wrong. Rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. may change presentation; measure their actual effect.

Rich result types Google supports — and the ones it removed

TIP Check whether the search feature still exists

Separate valid schema.org markup from current Google feature support with my free Rich-Result Eligibility Checker Free

1. Paste your JSON-LD, full HTML, or a live URL and identify the detected type.
2. Check whether the type is eligible, restricted, deprecated, or retired against the dated requirements table.
3. Keep valid markup when it still helps other consumers, but do not promise a Google enhancement that has been removed.

Tap to enlarge

The completed result is labeled FAQ and Retired. It reports zero required and recommended fields because the search feature is no longer active. A dated notice says Google stopped showing FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026, while FAQPage remains valid schema.org markup.

Google maintains a Search Gallery of supported types, but the list shrinks over time, and most articles online are out of date. As of the gallery’s last update (2026-06-15), the supported set is 25 types: Article, Breadcrumb, Carousel, Course info, Dataset, Discussion forum, Education Q&A, Employer aggregate rating, Event, Image metadata, Job posting, Local business, Math solver, Movie, Organization, Product, Profile page, Q&A, Recipe, Review snippet, Software app, Speakable, Subscription/paywalled content, Vacation rental, and Video.

What got removed — this is where most guides are wrong:

• HowTo rich results were removed from desktop in 2023 and limited thereafter.
• FAQ rich results were restricted in 2023 to government and health sites, then fully removed by May 2026. The FAQPage type is still valid markup — it just no longer produces a SERP enhancement for the vast majority of sites.
• Six more types were removed in June 2025: Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing, and the old single-course “Course Info” format. Google announced a seventh — Book Actions — in the same batch, but it was excluded from the actual September 2025 removal and Google later pulled the deprecation banner from that doc; it remains a narrow, registration-gated feature (see Book schemaBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. for the full story).

The takeaway: don’t build a strategy around a rich result that no longer exists, and don’t panic-strip valid markup just because the visual enhancement is gone.

How to implement structured data

TIP Validate required fields before publishing

Find blocking syntax, vocabulary, and required-property problems with my free Schema Markup Validator Free

1. Paste the JSON-LD, full HTML, or a live URL and confirm the detected entity type.
2. Fix blocking parser and required-property findings before working through optional recommendations.
3. Rerun the validator, then test the deployed page for Google feature eligibility separately.

Tap to enlarge

The completed validator result is labeled Blocks rich result. It says the Product needs at least one of offers, review, or aggregateRating for rich results and identifies the missing product offers-review-rating requirement.

A reliable order of operations:

1. Pick the right type for what’s genuinely on the page (Product for a product page, Article for a blog post, LocalBusiness for a location page).
2. Write JSON-LD — by hand, with a generator (Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper, Dentsu’s generator), or via a CMSA content management system (CMS) is software that lets users create, manage, and publish digital content — like blog posts and pages — without writing raw code. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are the most common open-source CMS platforms. plugin (Yoast, Rank Math).
3. Fill required properties first, then recommended ones. Google: “It is more important to supply fewer but complete and accurate recommended properties rather than trying to provide every possible recommended property.” Accuracy beats breadth.
4. Validate with the Rich Results Test and the schema.org validator.
5. Prefer raw-HTML delivery for parsers that do not document a renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM. stage.
6. Monitor the rich result reports in Google Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. after deployment.

And the policies that matter: only mark up visible content, keep it accurate (no fake reviews/ratings), don’t block your structured-data pages from GooglebotGooglebot is Google's web crawler — the software that fetches pages so Google can index and rank them. It comes in two variants, Googlebot Smartphone (primary, under mobile-first indexing) and Googlebot Desktop, and runs an evergreen Chromium renderer., and apply the same markup across canonical and duplicate versions of a page.

Structured data and AI search

It’s tempting to assume schema is the key to getting cited in AI answers. The best evidence says it isn’t a direct lever — an Ahrefs study of 1,885 pages found adding JSON-LD barely moved AI citationsAn AI citation is the visible source link an AI answer engine shows next to its generated text — the clickable reference that credits the web page it used. A citation's presence is a separate thing from whether the cited page actually supports the statement, and from being retrieved (read behind the scenes) or merely mentioned (named without a link); citation is driven more by brand mentions and being retrievable than by traditional ranking. on any platform. Google states there’s “no special schema.org structured data that you need to add” for AI features. Accurate schema supplies explicit machine-readable assertions, but provider use, entity resolution, and citation outcomes are not guaranteed and need separate evidence. Full treatment in Schema Markup for AISchema markup (structured data) is machine-readable code — usually JSON-LD — that labels what your content means using the schema.org vocabulary. For AI search it's infrastructure for entity disambiguation, not a direct citation lever: controlled studies found no meaningful uplift in AI citations from adding it..

Does Bing use structured data?

Yes. Bing reads schema.org markup in all three formats, uses it for its own rich results (recipes, events, products, FAQs, how-tos, videos), and feeds it into its Satori knowledge base for entity disambiguation. Bing Webmaster ToolsMicrosoft's free portal for monitoring and improving how a site appears in Bing search — the peer to Google Search Console, plus IndexNow instant indexing, richer backlink data, and keyword volumes. Because Bing's index also feeds Microsoft Copilot, it doubles as a window into AI-search visibility. includes a Markup Validator, and Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel has said schema helps Bing’s LLMs understand content — the one AI-platform rep to confirm that on the record.

Where to go next

This hub is the map. The deep dives in this sub-cluster:

• Schema markupSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. — the schema.org vocabulary itself: the common types every SEO should know (Organization, Product, Article, BreadcrumbList), how @id and @graph connect them, and how to choose the right type for a page.
• JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. — the recommended format up close: syntax, where to place the <script> block, server-side vs. client-side rendering, and how to write and validate it.
• Rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. — the SERP enhancements themselves: which types still exist, eligibility, the removals/deprecations, and how to track them in Search ConsoleGoogle's free tool for monitoring crawling, indexing, and search performance..
• ImageObject schemaImageObject is the schema.org type that describes an image as structured data. It's rarely used alone — its main job is as the value of an image or logo property nested inside another type (Product.image, Article.image, Recipe.image, Organization.logo). You upgrade a plain image URL to a full ImageObject when you want to attach metadata: who owns the image, how it can be licensed, its caption, or its dimensions. Adding the license property is what makes an image eligible for Google's Licensable badge. — the media type used standalone and nested inside Product/Article/Recipe.
• Carousel rich resultsA carousel rich result (Google calls it a \"host carousel\") is a horizontally scrollable row of cards, all from one site, built by wrapping two or more same-type items in an ItemList with position values. Only a short, shifting list of schema.org types qualifies — and a second, geographically limited beta carousel system now runs alongside the original. and ItemList schemaItemList is a schema.org type — a generic container for an ordered or unordered list of items ('a list of items of any sort'). Two properties do most of the work: itemListElement (the array of entries, usually ListItem objects) and position (a 1-based rank on each item). It's the underlying mechanism Google's Carousel rich result is built on, and BreadcrumbList is formally a subtype of it — but ItemList by itself is not a rich result and doesn't affect rankings. — the mechanism behind Google’s carousel feature and the generic list type underneath it (BreadcrumbList included).
• MerchantReturnPolicyMerchantReturnPolicy (schema.org/MerchantReturnPolicy) is the structured-data type that describes a return policy — window, fees, methods, refund type, and conditions — nested under Organization (site-wide default) or Offer (per-product override) via the hasMerchantReturnPolicy property, so Google can show return details in product rich results and knowledge panels. and OfferShippingDetailsOfferShippingDetails (schema.org/OfferShippingDetails) is structured data nested inside an Offer that tells Google what a product costs to ship, where it ships to, and how long delivery takes. As of November 2025, Google positions it as the per-product override of an organization-wide ShippingService default. — the Offer-level properties Merchant Center listings increasingly require.
• Speakable schemaSpeakable schema is structured data (schema.org's SpeakableSpecification, added via the speakable property on Article or WebPage) that marks the specific 2–3 sentences on a page best suited to be read aloud by text-to-speech — not the whole article. In 2026 it remains a real but narrow, still-BETA Google feature limited to US, English, Google Home users, and Google has not connected it to AI Overviews despite widespread claims that it does. — the narrow, still-beta markup for voice-assistant readback.
• Nesting schema with @id and @graphNesting schema markup with @id and @graph is the practice of connecting multiple JSON-LD entities into one linked graph instead of declaring each in isolation. @id is a unique URI (usually a canonical URL plus a #fragment) that identifies an entity — a WebSite, Organization, or Person — so other entities can reference it by that URI instead of re-declaring all its properties. @graph is a JSON-LD keyword that bundles multiple top-level entities into one array inside a single <script type=\"application/ld+json\"> block, cross-referencing each other via @id. — the deeper how-to on linking entities instead of re-declaring them.
• Common structured data errorsStructured data errors are problems in a page's schema.org markup that either break parsing entirely (malformed JSON-LD — trailing commas, unescaped quotes, a missing colon or brace) or parse fine but fail a search engine's eligibility rules for a rich result: missing required properties, wrong value types, a colliding/duplicate @id, or markup describing content that isn't visible on the page. Google surfaces them in the Rich Results Test and Search Console's Rich result report; schema.org's Schema Markup Validator checks general syntax/vocabulary. Fixing them restores rich-result eligibility — structured data isn't a ranking factor. — what the Rich Results Test and Search Console actually flag, and how to fix it.
• Schema & rich result deprecationsThe ongoing, piecemeal process by which Google (almost always Google, not Bing) stops showing a visual search-result enhancement for a schema.org-marked-up feature — even though the underlying schema.org type usually stays valid, parseable markup. A deprecation moves through a milestone chain that gets conflated into one date: announcement, when the visual rich result stops appearing, documentation removal, and tooling support removal (Search Console reporting, the Rich Results Test, then the API). 'Still valid' and 'still visible' are different things. — the running, dated timeline of what’s been removed or narrowed.

This sub-cluster lives in the broader on-page SEO cluster — alongside meta tagsMeta tags are HTML elements in a page's head that pass metadata about the page to search engines and browsers. For SEO only a few matter — the title element, the meta description, and the robots meta tag — while meta keywords and most others are ignored., header tags, image SEOImage SEO is optimizing the images on your pages so search engines can discover, crawl, index, and rank them — in Google Images and visual search, and as part of standard web results. It spans file format, filenames, alt text, compression, responsive markup, structured data, and image sitemaps., and the other on-page signals. Closely related entity work lives in Entity SEOEntity SEO is the practice of helping search engines and AI systems clearly identify, classify, and trust the entities you represent — your brand, your people, your products — rather than just matching keyword strings. The goal is to be an unambiguous, well-corroborated entity in machine knowledge systems so AI can cite you with confidence. and Schema Markup for AISchema markup (structured data) is machine-readable code — usually JSON-LD — that labels what your content means using the schema.org vocabulary. For AI search it's infrastructure for entity disambiguation, not a direct citation lever: controlled studies found no meaningful uplift in AI citations from adding it..

AI summary

A condensed take on the Advanced version:

• Vocabulary vs. format. schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. is the shared vocabulary (800+ types); JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal., Microdata, and RDFa are the three formats that carry it. Google recommends JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. as least error-prone — all three are supported.
• Documented value: eligibility for supported search features and explicit clues about page meaning. Display, CTR lift, Knowledge GraphThe Knowledge Graph is Google's database of entities — people, places, organizations, and things — and the factual relationships between them. It's separate from any single website's structured data: your schema markup is one of many possible inputs to the graph, not the graph itself. inclusion, AI citationsAn AI citation is the visible source link an AI answer engine shows next to its generated text — the clickable reference that credits the web page it used. A citation's presence is a separate thing from whether the cited page actually supports the statement, and from being retrieved (read behind the scenes) or merely mentioned (named without a link); citation is driven more by brand mentions and being retrievable than by traditional ranking., and ranking changes are not guaranteed. sameAs must be accurate but is not a promised lever.
• Not a ranking factor. Structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. does not directly improve rankings — Mueller, repeatedly. Feature appearance and other outcomes require separate measurement.
• The supported list shrinks. HowTo removed from desktop (2023); FAQ restricted in 2023 and fully removed by May 2026 (the FAQPage type stays valid); six types removed June 2025 (Claim Review, Estimated Salary, Learning Video, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing, old Course); Book ActionsBook schema (schema.org/Book) is structured data describing a book's title, author, ISBN, and format. It can power Google's review-snippet rich result and — for approved feed providers — the registration-gated Book Actions program, and it helps Google disambiguate book entities even without a visible rich result. was announced in the same batch but was NOT actually removed.
• Implementation: pick the right type, fill required properties first, validate (Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test + schema.org validator), prefer raw-HTML delivery for broad parser coverage, monitor in Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results., and only mark up visible content.
• AI searchAI search uses large language models and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to synthesize an answer from multiple sources rather than returning a ranked list of links. Examples include Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Perplexity.: schema is entity infrastructure, not a citation lever — Google says there’s “no special schema” for AI features; an Ahrefs 1,885-page study foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. no citation lift.
• Bing reads schema for its own rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. and Satori knowledge base; Fabrice Canel confirmed it helps Bing’s LLMs.
• Where to go next: schema-markup (the vocabulary), json-ld (the format), and rich-results (the SERP enhancements).

Official documentation

Primary-source documentation from the search engines and schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor..

Google

• Intro to How Structured Data Markup Works — the definition, the three formats, why JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal., and the rich-result business case.
• Structured Data Search Gallery — the current list of supported rich result types (the canonical source as the list changes).
• Structured Data General Guidelines / Policies — visibility, accuracy, and spam rules; “no guarantee” of rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show..
• AI Features and Your Website — the “no special schema.org structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. that you need to add” statement.

Bing / Microsoft

• Marking Up Your Site with Structured Data — Bing Webmaster Help — Bing’s structured data guidance; JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. recommended, must match page context.
• Bing Webmaster Tools — Markup Validator — Bing’s tool for testing schema (within Webmaster ToolsThe free, first-party consoles search engines give site owners — Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools — to see how their pages are crawled, indexed, and ranked, and to fix problems. The legacy name is 'webmaster tools.').

schema.org

• schema.org — the shared vocabulary itself.
• Organization · Product · Article · sameAs — common types and a same-entity URL relationship.

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements from Google and schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor.. Where a page exposes the text, the link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage.

Google — what structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. is and does

• “Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content.” — Google Search Central. Jump to quote
• “Google uses structured data that it finds on the web to understand the content of the page, as well as to gather information about the web and the world in general, such as information about the people, books, or companies that are included in the markup.” Jump to quote
• On JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal.: the recommended format is “the easiest solution for website owners to implement and maintain at scale (in other words, less prone to user errors).” Jump to quote
• “It is more important to supply fewer but complete and accurate recommended properties rather than trying to provide every possible recommended property with less complete, badly-formed, or inaccurate data.” Jump to quote

Google — the “no guarantee” rule and policies

• “Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly.” Jump to quote
• “Don’t block your structured data pages to GooglebotGooglebot is Google's web crawler — the software that fetches pages so Google can index and rank them. It comes in two variants, Googlebot Smartphone (primary, under mobile-first indexing) and Googlebot Desktop, and runs an evergreen Chromium renderer. using robots.txtA plain-text file at the root of a host that tells crawlers which URLs they may and may not request. It controls crawling, not indexing — a blocked URL can still be indexed if it's linked from elsewhere., noindexNoindex is a directive that tells search engines to keep a page out of their index, so it won't appear in search results. It works only on pages a crawler can actually fetch — a page blocked in robots.txt can never be noindexed., or any other access control methods.” Jump to quote

Google — no special schema for AI features

• “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features. There’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.” — Google Search Central, AI features documentation. Source

Structured data implementation checklist

A pass to confirm your structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. is correct, eligible, and actually readable:

• Right type for the page — Product on product pages, Article on posts, LocalBusiness on location pages. Don’t add types that don’t match the page.
• Only visible content is marked up — no fields describing things not on the page (Google policy; mismatches risk a manual action).
• Format is JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. — Google’s recommendation; least error-prone.
• Required properties filled first, then recommended ones — completeness and accuracy beat breadth.
• Rendered server-side — confirm it’s in the raw HTML (View Source / curl), not injected only via client-side JS / Tag Manager, so AI crawlersAI crawlers are bots from AI companies that fetch web pages to train language models, build AI-search indexes, or answer live user questions. They come in three categories, each with its own user-agent tokens and its own robots.txt controls. and non-renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM. parsers can read it.
• Organization markup sitewide with a populated sameAs array (Wikidata, Wikipedia, LinkedIn) — and every sameAs value double-checked so you don’t link your entity to the wrong organization.
• No reliance on removed rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. — FAQ (fully removed by May 2026) and HowTo (off desktop since 2023) no longer produce SERP enhancements for most sites; don’t build a strategy around them.
• Validated in the Rich Results Test and the schema.org validator.
• Consistent across canonical + duplicate pagesThe same or very similar primary content reachable at more than one URL. There's no general duplicate content penalty — the real costs are possible signal dilution, the wrong URL getting chosen, and less-efficient crawling. — same markup on all versions.
• Time-sensitive data kept current — outdated info (past events, stale prices) prevents rich result display.
• Monitored in Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. — rich result / enhancement reports checked for errors and warnings after deployment.
• Expectations set — schema makes you eligible for rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. (never guaranteed) and aids entity understanding; it is not a direct ranking lever.

Structured data — cheat sheet

Vocabulary vs. format

Currently supported Google rich result types (25, per Google’s Search Gallery, last updated 2026-06-15)

Article · Breadcrumb · Carousel · Course info · Dataset · Discussion forum · Education Q&A · Employer aggregate rating · Event · Image metadata · Job posting · Local business · Math solver · Movie · Organization · Product · Profile page · Q&A · Recipe · Review snippetReview schema (schema.org/Review) is structured data for a single critic's or user's evaluation of one specific thing — one author, one itemReviewed, one reviewRating — distinct from AggregateRating, which summarizes many reviews into an average. · Software app · Speakable · Subscription/paywalled content · Vacation rental · Video.

Removed / deprecated — don’t strategize around these

Fast facts

• Not a ranking factor — feature appearance and CTR impact must be measured.
• JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. recommended; goes in a <script type="application/ld+json"> block.
• Prefer raw-HTML delivery — provider renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM. support varies and is often undocumented; verify a named crawlerA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index. before making a crawlerA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index.-specific claim.
• sameAs identifies another URL about the same entity; avoid outcome promises.
• Rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. never guaranteed, even with perfect markup.
• Validate: Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test + schema.org validator. Monitor: Search Console enhancement reports.

Test yourself: Structured Data

Five quick questions on what structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. does — and doesn’t — do for SEO. Pick an answer for each, then check.

Resources worth your time

My structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. writing

• Structured Data: What It Is and How to Use It — my Ahrefs guide to schema typesSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor., implementation methods, validation tools, the AI-search angle, and the sameAs risk.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Technical SEO — where structured data fits into the broader technical picture.

Official

• Google’s Intro to How Structured Data Markup Works — the canonical reference: definition, formats, why JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal., business case.
• Google’s Structured Data Search Gallery — the live list of supported rich result types.
• Google’s Structured Data General Guidelines — the policies (visibility, accuracy, “no guarantee”).
• schema.org — the vocabulary itself.

From around the industry

• Marking Up Your Site with Structured Data — Bing Webmaster Help — Bing’s structured data guidance and Markup Validator.
• Microsoft Bing/Copilot use schema for its LLMs — Search Engine Land — coverage of Fabrice Canel’s confirmation that schema helps Bing’s LLMsA large language model (LLM) is a deep-learning model trained on massive text corpora to predict the next token and generate human-like text. LLMs use the transformer architecture and power AI search features like Google's AI Overviews (Gemini) and Bing Copilot (GPT-4)..
• Google Drops FAQ Rich Results From Search — Search Engine Journal — coverage of the FAQ rich-result removal and what stays valid.
• How schema markup fits into AI search — without the hype — Search Engine Land — the case that schema is entity infrastructure, not a citation lever.
• Dentsu Schema Markup Generator — a free tool for generating JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. for common types.

Prove the markup is valid and eligible

Two different things break here, and they need two different tests: markup can parse fine yet be ineligible for a rich result because a required property is missing, and a template change can silently break markup that was working. Valid ≠ eligible ≠ shown.

Test 1 — The JSON-LD parses with no errors

• Test to run — Paste the URL or the JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. into the Schema Validator (or the schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor. validator).
• Expected result — The type is detected and there are no syntax/parse errors — valid JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal., correct @type, no malformed nesting.
• Failure interpretation — Parse errors usually mean a templating bug — an unescaped quote, a null value where a string was expected, or two conflicting blocks on the page.
• Monitoring window — Immediate.
• Rollback trigger — The validator can’t detect the type at all after a template deploy — the markup isn’t renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM.; roll back the template change.

Test 2 — The page is eligible for the rich result

• Test to run — Run the URL through the Rich-Result Eligibility Checker and Google’s Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test.
• Expected result — The target feature reports “eligible” with all required properties present (recommended-property warnings are fine).
• Failure interpretation — “Valid but not eligible” means a required property is missing for that feature; note that eligibility is not a guarantee Google shows the result, and some types (e.g. FAQ) have been deprecated as rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. entirely.
• Monitoring window — Immediate for eligibility; if you’re tracking whether the result actually appears, watch the GSCA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. rich-result enhancement report and Search Appearance over 2–4 weeks.
• Rollback trigger — Valid items in the GSC enhancement report drop after a template change, or “eligible” flips to errors — a change broke a required property; revert and re-test.

Structured Data

Structured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding.

Related: Schema Markup, Rich Results, JSON-LD

Structured Data

Structured data is a standardized format for labeling the information on a web page so that machines can understand its meaning, not just read its words. It applies a shared vocabulary — primarily schema.orgSchema markup is code that uses the schema.org vocabulary to label what your content means so search engines can understand it and show rich results. It's most often written in JSON-LD, and it's not a direct ranking factor., a project of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex — to explicitly identify the entities, attributes, and relationships on a page: a product’s price, a recipe’s cook time, an event’s date, an article’s author.

The vocabulary (schema.org) and the format (how you write it) are separate things. There are three supported formats: JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. (a <script> block, which Google recommends as the easiest to maintain and least error-prone), Microdata, and RDFa (both interleaved into your HTML). All three work; JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a script-based structured data format, typically paired with the schema.org vocabulary to describe page content for search engines and AI systems. Google recommends it over Microdata and RDFa because it's the easiest format to implement and maintain at scale — but all three work, and structured data isn't a ranking signal. is the modern default.

Two things structured data does — and one it doesn’t:

• It powers rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show.. When search engines can parse your data unambiguously, your listing becomes eligible for enhanced SERP featuresSERP features are any element on a search results page beyond the classic ten blue links — featured snippets, People Also Ask, knowledge panels, sitelinks, image and video packs, AI Overviews, and structured-data-driven rich results. Google documents that losing rich-result eligibility doesn't affect ranking; their SEO relevance is CTR (they redistribute clicks). Some are unlocked by markup; most are purely algorithmic. (star ratings, product cards, breadcrumbsBreadcrumbs are a secondary navigation trail (Home > Category > Page) that shows where a page sits in a site's hierarchy. They create internal links that pass PageRank, and when marked up with BreadcrumbList structured data they can drive the path Google shows in desktop search results.). These can lift click-through rate.
• It helps entity understanding. Properties like sameAs connect your organization or author to authoritative profiles, feeding the Knowledge GraphThe Knowledge Graph is Google's database of entities — people, places, organizations, and things — and the factual relationships between them. It's separate from any single website's structured data: your schema markup is one of many possible inputs to the graph, not the graph itself. and helping disambiguate similarly named entities.
• It is not a direct ranking factor. John Mueller has confirmed this repeatedly. Adding schema does not make a page rank higher for a query; any ranking benefit is indirect (higher CTR from rich resultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show.).

Eligibility for a rich result is never guaranteed even with correct markup, and the supported types change over time — FAQ and HowTo rich results were sharply restricted in 2023, and a batch of other types was removed in 2025–2026.

Related: Schema Markup, Rich Results, JSON-LD

Changelog