Structured data

What it is

Structured data is machine-readable markup, typically JSON-LD using Schema.org vocabulary, that states what entities a page describes and how they relate. It turns implicit meaning in prose into explicit, parsable assertions.

Why it matters

As Google and generative systems converge on entity-level understanding, structured data is a primary signal for disambiguating entities and for being cited accurately in AI-generated answers.

How it works

Identify the page's core entities and relationships, map them to appropriate types and properties, and emit them as JSON-LD that mirrors the visible content.

When it applies

It applies to any page whose meaning, entities, or relationships you want machines to interpret without inferring them from text alone.

Examples

• A recipe page exposing ingredients, steps, and cook time as Recipe properties
• An author page connecting a Person to their published Articles and sameAs profiles
• An events listing emitting Event nodes with dates, locations, and organisers

How it is measured

• Percentage of key entities on a page covered by markup
• Agreement between structured claims and rendered content
• Number of entities successfully resolved to known knowledge-graph nodes
• Validation pass rate across the site's templates