Structured Data
Standardized code (usually JSON-LD) that helps search engines and AI understand your content. Includes schemas for Organization, Product, Article, FAQ, etc.
What is Structured Data?
Structured data is machine-readable markup added to a page that states, in a standard vocabulary, what the page is about: this is an Organization with this name, logo and official profiles; this is a Product with this price and these reviews; this is an Article by this author on this date; these are the questions and answers on this FAQ page. The vocabulary almost always comes from Schema.org, and the recommended way to express it is a JSON-LD block in the page's HTML.
Search engines have used structured data for years to power rich results such as star ratings, FAQ dropdowns and knowledge panels. For AI systems its value is slightly different. Retrieval and answer generation work mostly from the visible text, but structured data gives an unambiguous statement of entities and relationships that helps an engine resolve which organisation a page belongs to, what product it describes and which facts are canonical. It reinforces consistency, which is one of the signals engines use when deciding whether a source is trustworthy.
Structured data must match the visible content. Marking up an FAQ that is not on the page, or a price that differs from the one shown, is treated as spam by Google and undermines the consistency it was meant to provide. The most useful types for GEO are Organization (with sameAs links to official profiles), Product, Article, FAQPage, HowTo and BreadcrumbList.
Why it matters for AI search
AI engines recommend entities, and structured data is the most direct way to tell them what your entities are. It clarifies brand identity, product facts and authorship in a form that cannot be misread, supports knowledge-graph resolution, and strengthens the consistency signals that source attestation depends on. It will not earn a citation on its own, but it removes ambiguity that causes engines to describe a brand inaccurately or confuse it with a similarly named one.
Related terms
JSON-LD
JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data. The preferred format for implementing structured data that AI and search engines can parse.
Schema Markup
A vocabulary of tags (schemas) that help search engines and AI understand content context. Part of Schema.org standards.
Knowledge Graph
A network of entities and their relationships that AI models use to provide structured, factual answers.
Source Attestation
The process by which an AI model verifies the authority and truthfulness of a source before citing it in an answer.
Frequently asked questions
Which structured data types matter most for AI search?+
Organization with sameAs links, Product with offers and reviews, Article with author and dates, FAQPage for question-and-answer content, and BreadcrumbList for site structure. Start with Organization on every page and the type that matches each page's content.
Does structured data guarantee AI citations?+
No. Engines cite pages based on retrievability, relevance and how clearly the text answers the question. Structured data supports entity understanding and consistency but does not replace answer-first content and crawler access.
How do I validate structured data?+
Use Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema.org validator to check syntax and required properties, then confirm in Search Console that the markup is detected without errors. Check that every marked-up value matches what the page visibly shows.