Schema.org Markup
(Structured Data / JSON-LD)Definition
Schema.org markup is a standardized vocabulary of structured data tags — typically embedded as JSON-LD blocks in a page's HTML — that tells search engines and AI assistants what type of entity the page represents and what its key attributes are.
Schema.org is a collaborative project launched in 2011 by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex. It defines hundreds of entity types — Organization, Product, Article, LocalBusiness, Review, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList, and many more — each with a structured set of properties.
Pages add Schema markup by embedding a JSON-LD script block in the page HTML (a script tag with type "application/ld+json"). Search engines parse the block when crawling the page and use it to populate rich results — review stars, FAQ accordions in search, product price ranges — and to enrich knowledge graph entries.
For local businesses, the highest-leverage Schema types are: LocalBusiness (or the more specific subtype like Restaurant, Dentist, RealEstateAgent) for the business itself, Review and AggregateRating for review surfaces, FAQPage for FAQ sections, BreadcrumbList for navigation, Service for service descriptions, and Organization with proper sameAs linking to Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and other authoritative profiles.
AI search engines also use Schema markup heavily — Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google AI Overviews extract structured data to answer questions confidently. A page with clean LocalBusiness markup is far more likely to be cited when someone asks AI about the business.
Related terms
DefinedTerm Schema
DefinedTerm is the Schema.org type used to mark up entries in glossaries, technical lexicons, and reference works, signaling to search engines that the page contains an authoritative definition of a specific concept.
AI Overviews
Google's AI Overviews are generative summaries that appear at the top of Google search results for many queries, synthesizing information from multiple ranked sources into a single conversational answer with linked citations.
Review Schema (AggregateRating)
Review Schema is the Schema.org markup for individual customer reviews and aggregate ratings, which when properly implemented can produce star-rating rich snippets in Google search results and feed AI search engines with verifiable customer sentiment data.