Schema markup

How does schema markup work?#

Schema markup works by adding a block of machine-readable data, usually JSON-LD inside a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag, that names each thing on a page with Schema.org types and properties — an Article with an author and dates, a Product with a price — so a parser doesn’t have to infer it from the prose.

Schema.org is a shared vocabulary founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex. JSON-LD is the format Google recommends, because it sits apart from the visible HTML and is easy to maintain. Google says it uses structured data “to understand the content of the page” and, for supported types, to show rich results such as prices, ratings and event dates in the listing.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "How to plan a product launch with a five-person team",
  "datePublished": "2026-09-01",
  "dateModified": "2026-09-18",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Jordan Lee",
    "url": "https://plannora.io/team/jordan-lee"
  },
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Plannora",
    "url": "https://plannora.io",
    "logo": "https://plannora.io/logo.png",
    "sameAs": [
      "https://www.linkedin.com/company/plannora",
      "https://www.youtube.com/@plannora"
    ]
  }
}
</script>

Two rules from Google’s guidelines matter more than which types you pick. Mark up only what readers can see: “don’t add structured data about information that is not visible to the user, even if the information is accurate.” And supply “fewer but complete and accurate” properties rather than every optional one. Validate with the Rich Results Test for Google features and the Schema Markup Validator for the rest.

Does schema markup help with AI search?#

Schema markup has no confirmed effect on AI citations: Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special schema, and a 2026 Ahrefs test of 1,885 pages found that adding JSON-LD produced no meaningful lift in ChatGPT, AI Mode or AI Overviews citations.

• Google: not required for AI features

  Official

  Google’s AI optimization guide: “Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add.” It still recommends schema for rich results.

• Microsoft: it helps its LLMs understand pages

  Official

  At SMX Munich in March 2025, Bing’s Fabrice Canel was reported as saying schema markup helps Microsoft’s LLMs understand content. No effect on Copilot citations has been published.

• Text-only fetchers may never see it

  Our read

  Anthropic’s web fetch returns page text, so a fact that exists only in JSON-LD may never reach Claude. State every marked-up fact in the visible copy as well.

• The test covered pages already being cited

  Observed

  Every page in the Ahrefs sample had 100+ AI Overview citations before adding schema, so the finding applies to pages already in the consideration set — not to pages engines haven’t picked up yet.

What does schema markup still get you in Google?#

Schema markup still makes pages eligible for Google rich results — product prices and ratings, review stars, recipes, events, videos and job postings — which can lift clicks on classic listings, but several once-popular types no longer show, including FAQ rich results since May 2026.

Google’s own case studies report click-through gains from rich results — Rotten Tomatoes measured a 25% higher click-through rate on marked-up pages — though those figures come from the sites themselves. Treat rich results as a way to stand out in classic listings on the SERP, not as a route into AI answers.

Which schema markup types matter most for a small business site?#

Most small business sites need only four schema types: Organization on the homepage, Article or BlogPosting on posts, Product or SoftwareApplication on what you sell, and LocalBusiness if you serve an area. Everything else can wait until Google documents a rich result you actually want.

• Organization — name, URL, logo and sameAs links to your LinkedIn, YouTube, Crunchbase or Wikipedia pages. It’s the cheapest entity SEO signal you control, and it helps systems like Google’s Knowledge Graph tell your brand from a similarly named one.
• Article / BlogPosting — headline, an author linked to a real author page, datePublished and an honest dateModified. AI engines weigh dates — Perplexity stores publish and update dates per page, and Claude sees each result’s age — so keep the markup, the visible date and your sitemap’s lastmod in agreement.
• Product or SoftwareApplication — price, currency, availability and genuine ratings, identical to what the page shows.
• LocalBusiness — address, hours and phone number, consistent with your Google Business Profile.

Common mistakes with schema markup#

The most common schema markup mistakes are marking up facts the page doesn’t show, letting prices and dates drift out of sync with the copy, injecting JSON-LD with JavaScript that AI crawlers never run, and treating markup as a substitute for clear visible content.

Related terms#

• Authority & off-siteEntity SEOThe practice of making search engines and AI models recognize a brand, person or product as a distinct, well-described thing — an entity with consistent facts and relationships — rather than a string of keywords, so it can be tied to the topics it should be recommended for.Read the entry
• Authority & off-siteKnowledge GraphA database of hundreds of billions of facts about entities — people, places, organizations and products — and the relationships between them, which Google uses to understand queries, fill knowledge panels and help its AI features tell one brand from another.Read the entry
• SSRTechnical SEOServer-side renderingThe practice of generating a page’s full HTML on the server before sending it, so crawlers that don’t run JavaScript — which includes most AI crawlers — can read the content in the first response.Read the entry
• AI crawlersllms.txtA proposed standard for a Markdown file, usually at a site’s root, that gives large language models a curated map of a site’s key pages; unlike robots.txt it grants or blocks nothing, and no major AI search engine has confirmed using it.Read the entry
• AI search & GEOAI OverviewsAI-generated summaries shown at the top of some Google search results, written by a Gemini model from pages in Google’s search index and linked to their sources — so they are won through ordinary Google eligibility, not a separate submission or special markup.Read the entry
• MeasurementSERPThe page a search engine returns for a query, which today mixes classic blue links with AI Overviews, ads, featured snippets, videos, forum threads and other features competing for the same attention.Read the entry