Structured Data

A search engine reading a recipe page can see text and images, but it cannot reliably tell which number is the cooking time and which is the servings count. Structured data is a way of labelling that information explicitly, in a format built for machines rather than people.

Schema.org is a shared vocabulary — an agreed set of types (Article, Product, Recipe, Organization, FAQPage, LocalBusiness) and the properties each one can have. It is maintained collaboratively by the major search engines, so the same markup works across all of them.

JSON-LD is the recommended format for expressing it: a block of JSON in a script tag, separate from your visible HTML.

JSON-LD is preferred over the older alternatives precisely because it sits apart from the markup — you can add, change, or remove it without touching the HTML that renders the page.

Structured data is not itself a ranking factor. What it can earn is a rich result — an enhanced appearance in search results:

• Star ratings under a product or review
• FAQ questions expandable directly in results
• Recipe cards with cooking time and images
• Event dates and locations
• Breadcrumb trails instead of a raw URL

A result that takes up more space and answers more of the question before the click tends to attract more attention than a plain one next to it. That is the practical benefit — visibility, not position.

Structured data is easy to get subtly wrong — a mistyped property name fails silently. Both Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator will parse a page or a snippet and report errors and warnings. Check the markup when you add it, rather than assuming it worked.

Search Console also reports structured data problems across a whole site once it is verified, which catches issues introduced later by a template change.