GlossarySEO
What is Schema.org?
Also called: schema markup, schema.org vocabulary, schema
Definition
Schema.org is a shared vocabulary of types and properties, like Organization, Product and Article, that websites use in structured data to describe their content to search engines and other machines.
Schema.org, explained
Schema.org launched in 2011 as a joint project of Bing, Google and Yahoo, and Yandex joined later that year. Its about page describes it as a collaborative, community activity to create, maintain and promote schemas for structured data on the internet. It's run by a small steering group and a larger W3C community group, and development happens in the open on GitHub.
The vocabulary is a hierarchy of types. Thing is at the top; below it sit types like CreativeWork, Organization, Person, Place and Product, each with more specific subtypes such as Article → BlogPosting or SoftwareApplication → WebApplication. Each type has properties: an Organization has name, url, logo and sameAs; a Product has offers and aggregateRating. You pick the most specific type that fits and fill in the properties that apply.
Schema.org defines far more than any search engine uses. Google documents a subset of types that can produce rich results, and each has its own required and recommended properties that are stricter than Schema.org's. So valid Schema.org markup isn't automatically eligible for a rich result. Check Google's documentation for the feature you want, and use the Rich Results Test for Google or the Schema Markup Validator for general validity.
Structured data can be written as JSON-LD, Microdata or RDFa. Google recommends JSON-LD because it sits in one script block, separate from your HTML, and is easy to generate from data.
Why it matters for founders
Schema.org is the shared language behind rich results and a machine-readable description of your product, company and content. Using it correctly helps Google and other systems understand what you are.
Example
Your homepage uses Organization with name, logo and sameAs links to your social profiles, and your app page uses SoftwareApplication with an offers price, both as JSON-LD.
Common mistakes
- Assuming any valid Schema.org markup will produce a rich result.
- Using a generic type when a more specific one exists.
- Marking up content that isn't visible on the page.
- Copying markup between pages without updating the values.
Sources
- Schema.org: About
- Bing Blog (2011): Introducing Schema.org
- Google Search Central: Intro to structured data
Checked
Related terms
- Structured data (JSON-LD)Structured data is machine-readable information about a page, usually written as JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary. It helps search engines understand what a page is about and can make it eligible for rich results.
- JSON-LDJSON-LD is a way of writing structured data as a JSON object inside a
<script type="application/ld+json">tag. It's the format Google recommends for Schema.org markup. - Rich resultsRich results are search listings with extra visual features beyond the title, URL and snippet, like review stars, prices, breadcrumbs or video thumbnails. Most depend on structured data.
- Organization schemaOrganization schema is structured data that describes your company, including name, URL, logo, social profiles and contact details, so Google can identify it and show details like your logo in results.