Glossary · Technical
Structured data
Definition. Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually JSON-LD following schema.org vocabulary, that describes what a page contains: an article, a product, a business, a set of questions. It makes pages eligible for rich results and unambiguous to systems that parse them.
It is not a ranking factor in itself. It is a comprehension aid, which matters more as retrieval systems parse pages at speed and at scale.
The rule that gets sites into trouble: markup must describe content the user can actually see. Marking up invisible content is a spam policy violation.
The high-value types for most sites are Organization, WebSite, BreadcrumbList, Article, and Product or LocalBusiness where they apply.
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Related terms
Schema.org
Schema.org is the shared vocabulary for structured data, maintained collaboratively by Google…
Rich result
A rich result is a search result enhanced beyond a title, URL and description: star ratings, product…
JSON-LD
JSON-LD is the JSON-based format for embedding structured data in a page, placed inside a script tag. It…
More in Technical: Internal linking · Anchor text · Orphan page · Crawl budget · Indexation · Canonical URL · Duplicate content · Keyword cannibalization
Frequently asked questions
What does Structured data mean?
Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually JSON-LD following schema.org vocabulary, that describes what a page contains: an article, a product, a business, a set of questions. It makes pages eligible for rich results and unambiguous to systems that parse them.
Why does Structured data matter for AI SEO?
It is not a ranking factor in itself. It is a comprehension aid, which matters more as retrieval systems parse pages at speed and at scale.
What is the most common mistake with structured data?
The high-value types for most sites are Organization, WebSite, BreadcrumbList, Article, and Product or LocalBusiness where they apply.
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