JSON-LD
The format most websites use to add structured data to a page, as a block of JSON in the page's HTML.
JSON-LD is the format most websites use to add structured data to a page. It's a block of JSON inside a <script> tag in the page's HTML, separate from the text people read. Google recommends it over the other formats, Microdata and RDFa, because it's the easiest to add and keep up to date.
What it looks like
Here's a short example for a company's About page, saying who the company is and where else it lives on the web:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Fernhill Coffee",
"url": "https://fernhillcoffee.co.uk",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/fernhill-coffee",
"https://www.instagram.com/fernhillcoffee"
]
}@context says the vocabulary is Schema.org. @type says what the thing is, and the rest are its properties. The sameAs list links the brand to its profiles elsewhere, which helps a machine tell that they're all the same entity.
Where it goes
It sits in the page's HTML, usually in the <head>. It has to be in the HTML your server sends. If a script adds it after the page loads, some bots will never see it, because many AI bots don't run scripts.
You can check what Google reads from a page with its Rich Results Test.
In AnswerOrbit
When you check a page in Recommendations, the Structured data check passes if the page carries structured data that machines can read. The Pages tab in Website shows you what a bot reads on a page next to what a person sees. See Recommendations and Website and AI traffic.