Structured data for websites: JSON-LD, validation and common mistakes

The types worth having

• Organization or a LocalBusiness subtype on the homepage: name, logo, URL, address, phone, opening hours and sameAs links to your official profiles. This is the foundation for being recognized as an entity.
• WebSite with your site name, which helps Google show the right site name in results.
• BreadcrumbList on inner pages, which produces breadcrumb trails in results.
• Product with Offer (price, currency, availability) on product pages, plus shipping and return policy details where you can. This powers merchant listings and product snippets.
• Article or BlogPosting with author and dates on editorial content.

What changed: FAQ, HowTo and review stars

Since August 2023 Google showed FAQ rich results only for well-known, authoritative government and health websites, and HowTo rich results were removed entirely. Google then discontinued the FAQ rich result feature altogether: since 7 May 2026 it no longer appears in Google Search for any site. In 2025 Google also retired a number of less-used rich result types.

FAQPage markup is still valid schema.org and can help machines read question-and-answer content, but it no longer produces expandable FAQs in Google results, so do not add it as a search tactic.

Review stars have limits too: a business cannot get star snippets for reviews it publishes about itself on its own site through LocalBusiness or Organization markup.

Structured data and AI answers

AI systems do not need special markup to read a page, and Google says no additional structured data is required for its AI features. Accurate markup still helps: it states facts such as prices, locations, opening hours and authorship unambiguously, which makes a page easier to understand and quote correctly.

Mistakes that get markup ignored

• Marking up content that is not visible on the page, such as reviews or FAQs that only exist in the JSON-LD.
• Prices, ratings or availability in the markup that differ from what the page shows.
• Copying the same Organization block with a different name or logo on every page.
• Invalid JSON: one missing comma makes the whole block unreadable.
• Wrong page type: every page is marked up as a Product or FAQPage even when the visible content does not match.
• Broken references: canonical URLs or entity @id values point to a different page or to an inconsistent organization.

How to test it

Structured data should describe information that is visible and accurate on the page. First check that your JSON-LD is valid JSON. Then confirm that the schema type fits the page and that required or recommended properties are actually supported by its content. Finally, test eligibility with an official rich-result tool where applicable. Valid syntax does not make a page eligible for a rich result by itself.

Use Google's Rich Results Test to see which rich results a page is eligible for, and the Schema Markup Validator for general schema.org validity. After deployment, the Enhancements reports in Search Console show errors across the whole site.

The Sitequiry analysis detects the JSON-LD types on the analyzed page and points out which important ones are missing for that type of page.

Example: a minimal Organization block

An illustrative example for a fictional company at example.com, not a template to copy as is. Replace every value with your own details, and add an address, phone number or opening hours only if the page shows them.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization",
  "name": "Example Studio",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "logo": "https://www.example.com/logo.png",
  "sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/company/example-studio"]
}

Frequently asked questions