Structured Data

Clear facts are easier for an engine to trust and reuse. In classic search, structured data can make a page eligible for rich results, such as star ratings, prices and expandable questions shown in the listing. Eligibility is not a promise, because the engine decides what to show. For AI answer engines, clean labelled facts are easier to lift into a generated answer. It also helps an engine connect the page to the right brand or product, which supports an entity.

• Start with the pages that carry the clearest facts: product pages, articles, FAQs and reviews.
• Use schema.org types written as JSON-LD, rather than inventing a format no engine reads.
• Check whether the website platform or a plugin already adds common markup before writing any by hand.
• Test each new block with Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator.
• Keep the marked-up facts identical to what the visible page says. Markup that disagrees with the page can be ignored or penalised.

A person reading a page can tell that "£49" is a price and "4.8" is a rating. A search engine has to infer it. Structured data removes the guesswork. It is a block of code, normally written as JSON-LD, placed in the page that says in plain labelled fields: this is a product, its name is this, its price is this, its rating is this.

The shared vocabulary for these labels is schema.org, which Google, Bing and others read. Common types include Article, Product, FAQPage, Review and LocalBusiness.