Structured data: what it is and which types matter in 2026

Structured data is a block of code, usually JSON-LD, that labels what a page is about using the shared schema.org vocabulary: this is an organisation, this is its logo, this is a product with this price. Google uses it to understand pages and to show some of them as rich results. For a typical business website, four types are worth adding: Organization (or LocalBusiness), BreadcrumbList, Article for blog posts, and Product if you sell online. Most other types are niche, and several have been retired.

Structured data is one of the deliverables in our technical SEO and performance work, and the decision we make most often is which types to leave out.

What does structured data actually do?

Google's introduction to structured data gives two uses. First, it helps Google understand the page and gather facts about people, businesses and products. Second, it can make the page eligible for a rich result: a search listing with extra detail such as a price, star rating, breadcrumb trail or event date.

Three limits apply to both:

• Eligibility is not a guarantee. Google decides whether to show a rich result for each search, and often does not.
• The markup must describe what is visible. Google's guidelines forbid marking up content readers cannot see, and misleading markup can lead to a manual action that removes rich result eligibility from the affected pages.
• It is not a ranking signal in itself. Nothing in Google's documentation says markup lifts rankings. A rich result can earn more clicks at the same position, which is the point of adding it.

Which types are worth adding to a business website?

As of October 2026, Google's search gallery lists 25 supported features. Most business sites need four or five of them.

The generators on our tools page cover the common ones. Our breadcrumb schema generator builds BreadcrumbList from a list of page names and URLs, and there are matching tools for Organization, LocalBusiness, Article and Product.

Ratings need care. Google does not allow review stars for LocalBusiness or Organization markup when the reviews are about your own business and sit on your own site. Copying your Google reviews into markup on your homepage will not produce stars.

Which rich results has Google removed?

Google has been trimming rich results for three years. The list matters because plugins and old tutorials still add markup for features that no longer appear.

When Google announced the 2025 removals, it said they would not affect how pages are ranked. In 2023, writing about FAQ and HowTo, it said unused structured data "does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects". So there is no urgency to delete old markup, and no reason to add more of it. How to add FAQ schema covers the FAQ change in detail.

How should you add structured data?

Use JSON-LD in a script tag, generated from the same data that renders the page, so the two cannot drift apart. A minimal Organization block for a homepage looks like this:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Example Studio",
  "url": "https://www.example.com",
  "logo": "https://www.example.com/images/logo.png",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/example-studio"
  ],
  "contactPoint": {
    "@type": "ContactPoint",
    "telephone": "+91-20-5555-0100",
    "contactType": "customer service"
  }
}
</script>

How you get it onto the page depends on the platform:

• WordPress: an SEO plugin such as Yoast or Rank Math outputs Organization, Article and breadcrumb markup, depending on its settings. Check that only one plugin does it. Two plugins produce two conflicting Organization entities.
• Shopify: most themes output Product markup. Check that price and availability in the markup match the page, including on sale.
• Next.js and other custom builds: render the JSON-LD in the page component from the same props as the visible content. For blog posts, build it from the post's frontmatter.

Avoid hand-pasting markup into a page builder's HTML block. It works on day one and goes stale the first time someone edits the page.

How do you test it?

• Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) shows which rich results a URL is eligible for and any errors that block them. It covers only types Google currently supports.
• Schema Markup Validator (validator.schema.org) checks any schema.org markup against the vocabulary, including types Google no longer displays.
• URL Inspection in Search Console shows the structured data Google found when it last crawled the page.
• Structured data reports in Search Console appear for each supported type Google finds, with errors grouped across the site. Check them after any template change.

When is structured data not worth the effort?

On a small brochure site, Organization and BreadcrumbList take an hour and cover what Google will use. Adding a dozen more types adds maintenance without adding anything to how the site looks in search.

It is also not worth adding markup for AI features. Google's guide to AI features says there is no special schema.org markup to add, and its generative AI guide tells site owners not to overfocus on structured data, while still recommending it for the rich results it supports.

Where structured data does pay is on shops (Product with price and availability), on sites with many locations (one LocalBusiness block per location page), and on publishers (Article). For everyone else, add the basics, test them once, and spend the remaining time on the rest of the technical SEO checklist. If you run a local business, local business schema has a working example.