SEO & Search
What Is Schema Markup?
Machine readable labels added to a page so software knows what the content is, not just what words it contains.
Definition
Schema markup is structured data added to a web page using the shared vocabulary published at schema.org. It labels entities and their properties, for example marking a block of text as a Recipe with a cookTime, or a page as an Article with an author and a datePublished. Google recommends JSON-LD as the format.
The three encodings
Schema.org vocabulary can be expressed in three syntaxes. JSON-LD places the data in a script tag separate from the visible markup. Microdata and RDFa annotate the HTML elements directly. Google recommends JSON-LD because it keeps the data in one block that is easy to generate and validate.
What it does and does not do
Structured data makes a page eligible for rich results in Search, such as review stars, FAQ expanders or breadcrumb trails. Eligibility is not a guarantee, and Google is clear that structured data is not a ranking shortcut. Its practical value is that it removes ambiguity about what a page describes.
Rules that are easy to break
- Mark up content that is visible to the user, not content hidden from them
- Use the most specific type that fits, rather than a generic one
- Fill required properties, since incomplete items are often ineligible
- Validate with the Rich Results Test and monitor the Search Console reports
- Do not mark up content that is misleading or that the page does not contain
Google Search uses structured data to understand the content of the page and show that content in a richer appearance in search results.