schema.org

{{Infobox technology standard

| image = Schema.org-Logo.svg

| title = Schema.org

| year_started = {{Start date and age|2011}}

| organization = Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Yandex

| base_standards = URI, HTML5, RDF, Microdata, ISO 8601

| related_standards = RDFa, Microformat, RDFS, OWL, N-Triples, Turtle, JSON, JSON-LD, CSV

| abbreviation = schema

| domain = Semantic Web

| license = CC-BY-SA 3.0

| website = {{Official URL}}

| version = 28.0 (2024-09-17){{cite web |url=https://schema.org/docs/releases.html |title=schema.org releases}}

}}

Schema.org is a reference website that publishes documentation and guidelines for using structured data mark-up on web-pages (in the form of microdata, RDFa or JSON-LD). Its main objective is to standardize HTML tags to be used by webmasters for creating rich results (displayed as visual data or infographic tables on search engine results) about a certain topic of interest.{{cite web |url=https://www.w3.org/community/meat/2016/02/04/more-about-our-mission/ |title=About schema.org initiative |publisher=W3C |access-date=2018-06-28}} It is a part of the semantic web project, which aims to make document mark-up codes more readable and meaningful to both humans and machines.

History

Schema.org is an initiative launched on June 2, 2011, by Bing, Google and Yahoo!{{cite web |title=Home - schema.org |url=https://schema.org/ |access-date=2025-02-14 |work=schema.org}}[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-schemaorg-search-engines.html Introducing schema.org: Search engines come together for a richer web], Google blog, 2 June 2011[https://blogs.bing.com/search/2011/06/02/introducing-schema-org-bing-google-and-yahoo-unite-to-build-the-web-of-objects/ Introducing Schema.org: Bing, Google and Yahoo Unite to Build the Web of Objects], Bing blog, 2 June 2011 (operators of the world's largest search engines at that time){{cite web |url=http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-201010-201012 |title=Top 5 Search Engines from Oct to Dec 10 |publisher=StatCounter |access-date=2011-01-17}} to create and support a common set of schemas for structured data markup on web pages. In November 2011, Yandex (whose search engine is the largest in Russia) joined the initiative.{{cite web |url=https://techcrunch.com/2011/11/01/yandex-joins-google-yahoo-and-bing-to-collaborate-on-schema-org/ |title=Yandex joins Google, Yahoo! and Bing to collaborate on Schema.org - TechCrunch |last=nate451 |access-date=2017-07-06}}{{cite web |url=http://blog.schema.org/2011/11/yandex-now-supports-schemaorg-markup.html |title=Yandex now supports schema.org markup |work=blog.schema.org |access-date=2017-07-06}} They propose using the schema.org vocabulary along with the Microdata, RDFa, or JSON-LD formats{{cite web |url=http://schema.org/docs/gs.html |title=Getting Started - schema.org |work=schema.org |access-date=2017-07-06}} to mark up website content with metadata about itself. Such markup can be recognized by search engine spiders and other parsers, thus granting access to the meaning of the sites (see Semantic Web). The initiative also describes an extension mechanism for adding additional properties.{{cite web |url=http://www.schema.org/docs/extension.html |title=Extending Schemas |date=2011-06-02 |work=schema.org |access-date=2011-06-02}} In 2012, the GoodRelations ontology was integrated into Schema.org.{{cite web |url=http://blog.schema.org/2012/11/good-relations-and-schemaorg.html |title=Good Relations and Schema.org |work=blog.schema.org |access-date=2017-07-06}} Public discussion of the initiative largely takes place on the W3C public vocabularies mailing list.{{cite web |url=http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/ |title=W3C web vocabularies mailing list |date=2013-07-22 |work=w3.org |access-date=2013-07-22}}

Much of the vocabulary on Schema.org was inspired by earlier formats, such as microformats, FOAF, and OpenCyc.{{cite web |url=http://www.schema.org/docs/faq.html |title=FAQ |work=schema.org |access-date=2011-06-02}} Microformats, with its most dominant representative hCard, continue (as of 2015) to be published widely on the web, where the deployment of Schema.org has strongly increased between 2012 and 2014.{{cite web |url=http://webdatacommons.org/structureddata |date=2015-04-13 |work=3.1. Extraction Results from the December 2014 Common Crawl Corpus |access-date=2015-04-13 |title=Web Data Commons – RDFa, Microdata, and Microformat Data Sets -- Extracting Structured Data from the Common Web Crawl}} In 2015,{{cite web |url=https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/03/easier-website-development-with-web.html |date=2015-03-09 |title=Easier website development with Web Components and JSON-LD}} Google began supporting the JSON-LD format, and as of September, 2017 recommended using JSON-LD for structured data whenever possible.{{cite web |url=https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data#structured-data-format |date=2017-09-13 |title=Introduction to Structured Data}}{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idEX5SA9M8M&list=PLptu98aBkH88ri7cq6-jH-8m6QvLFP7Wk |date=2019-09-06 |title=How to add Schema Markup Data JSON-LD |work=YouTube}}

Despite the advantages of using Schema.org, adoption remained limited as of 2016. A survey in 2016 of 300 US-based marketing agencies and B2C advertisers across

industries showing only 17% uptake.{{cite web |url=https://advertiseonbing.blob.core.windows.net/blob/bingads/media/library/insight/prioritize-search-to%20boost-roi/forrester-prioritize-search-whitepaper.pdf?ext=.pdf |title=Prioritize Search To Maximize ROI Of Marketing |date=2017-01-01}} As of 2024 over 45 million web domains have used schema markup on their web pages.{{cite web |title=Schema.org - Schema.org |url=https://schema.org/ |access-date=2025-02-14 |work=schema.org}}

Validators, such as the deprecated{{cite web |title=An update on the Structured Data Testing Tool {{!}} Google Search Central Blog |url=https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/12/structured-data-testing-tool-update |access-date=2024-07-02 |work=Google for Developers |language=en}} Google Structured Data Testing Tool, or more recent{{cite web |url=https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/07/rich-results-test-out-of-beta.html |title=The Rich Results Test is out of beta |work=webmasters.googleblog.com |access-date=2020-08-25}} Google Rich Results Test Tool,{{cite web |url=https://search.google.com/test/rich-results |title=Rich Result Tool |work=www.google.com |access-date=2020-07-28}} Schema.org Markup Validator,{{cite web |title=Schema Markup Validator |url=https://validator.schema.org |access-date=2024-07-02 |work=validator.schema.org}} Yandex Microformat validator,{{cite web |url=http://webmaster.yandex.ru/microtest.xml |title=Микроразметка — Яндекс.Вебмастер |work=webmaster.yandex.ru |access-date=2017-07-06}} and Bing Markup Validator{{cite web |url=http://www.bing.com/toolbox/markup-validator |title=Bing - Markup Validator |work=www.bing.com |access-date=2017-07-06}} can be used to test the validity of the data marked up with the schemas and Microdata. More recently, Google Search Console (formerly webmaster tools) has provided a report section for unparsable structured data. If any Schema code on a website is incorrect, it will show in this report.{{cite web |url=https://www.sqdigital.co.uk/seo/what-is-schema-markup-and-how-structured-data-can-benefit-your-business/ |date=2019-12-04 |title=What is Schema Mark Up and How Can it Benefit Your Business |access-date=2021-08-18 |archive-date=2021-08-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818230530/https://www.sqdigital.co.uk/seo/what-is-schema-markup-and-how-structured-data-can-benefit-your-business/ |url-status=dead}} Some schema markups such as Organization and Person are commonly used to influence search results returned by Google's Knowledge Graph.{{cite web |title=Specify your social profiles to Google |url=https://developers.google.com/structured-data/customize/social-profiles |work=Google Developers |access-date=2015-06-25}}

Schema Types

Schema vocabulary includes sets of types, which each have related metadata properties that can be illustrated using pre defined enumerations and Datatypes. Types are managed by schema.org and are regularly updated as of February 2025, there are over 800 schema types.{{cite web |title=Schemas - Schema.org |url=https://schema.org/docs/schemas.html |access-date=2025-02-14 |work=schema.org}} There are a number of subjects and elements that a web pages that can be marked up with using a Schema, with examples including:

Article
Breadcrumb
Course
Event
FAQ
LocalBusiness
Logo
Movie
Product
Recipe
Review
Video

Examples

= Microdata =

The following is an example{{cite web |url=http://schema.org/docs/gs.html#microdata_itemscope_itemtype |title=Getting Started - schema.org |work=schema.org |access-date=2017-07-06}} of how to mark up information about a movie and its director using the Schema.org schemas and microdata. In order to mark up the data, the attribute itemtype along with the URL of the schema is used. The attribute itemscope defines the scope of the itemtype. The kind of the current item can be defined by using the attribute itemprop.