What is structured data?

Why it matters

A search engine reading a normal page is guessing: it sees text and tries to work out that this number is a price and that line is an author. Structured data removes the guessing by stating it plainly in a format machines read. That clarity unlocks rich results, the star ratings, prices, and FAQs you see right in search, and it feeds the knowledge graphs that AI answers increasingly draw from. It is one of the most direct technical moves in SEO.

How it works

The common recipe is schema.org for the vocabulary and JSON-LD for the format: a small block of structured text, tucked in the page's code, that labels each piece of content by type. A page can declare it is an Article with this headline and author, a Product with this price and stock status, or a local Business with these hours. The visitor never sees it; it speaks only to the machines reading the page.

A common mistake

Marking up things that are not really on the page, or describing them inaccurately. Search engines check structured data against what a visitor actually sees, and a mismatch gets the markup ignored or the site penalized. The rule is simple: the structured data has to describe the real content, honestly. Done that way, it is a quiet, reliable edge that most competitors never bother to set up.