Structured Data for SEO: What Google Says

On September 14, 2026, we typed “dados estruturados seo” (structured data SEO) into Google. The search ran on Google in Brazil, where we are based. At the top, the AI Overview explained what the markup is for. It would make stars, prices, recipe cook times, and FAQs show up in the results. ¹

The last item on that list is gone. Google stopped showing the FAQ rich result on May 7, 2026. In June, it deleted the documentation for it. ²

Scroll down the same page. A glossary still lists the sitelinks search box. Google deleted its documentation in November 2024, when the feature was already gone from Search. ³ ² A guide from February 2026 still presents how-to markup as a path to a special result. That one went away in September 2023. ³ ²

None of these texts was written in bad faith. Google’s gallery changes, and published text stays where it was. That is why this piece travels with the documentation open, checked on September 14, 2026.

One boundary before we go on. “Structured data,” on its own, is also a data science topic: tables, spreadsheets, databases. Take the Portuguese term without “seo” in Semrush’s Brazil database. Seven of the top ten addresses cover data science. ⁴ Even with “seo,” one of the texts on the first page opens with tables and gives an Excel spreadsheet as its example. ³ Here, the topic is the markup a site hands to search engines.

What structured data is

Think of a truck pulling into a weigh station. The cargo rides sealed in the trailer. The invoice rides in the cab, with the product, the quantity, and the recipient in fixed fields. The inspector reads the invoice first. If they open the trailer and find something else, the invoice becomes a problem.

A page carries both things. The text is the cargo, made for the reader. In a block of code, the same page fills in fixed fields: this is a recipe, this is the author, this is the company. This is called structured data.

Google’s definition fits in one sentence. It is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying its content. ⁵ Google writes that it uses this data to understand the page. It also uses it to gather information about the world, such as the people, books, and companies named in the markup. ⁵

Hold on to that second part. That is where entities come in, further down.

The field names come from a public vocabulary, schema.org. It is maintained by a community founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex. ⁶ Google warns that the vocabulary has more types than Search uses. To know what Google Search does, the reference is Google’s own documentation. ⁵

Where markup sits among the other items on a page is covered in the piece on on-page SEO. Here it gets a whole piece to itself.

The format: JSON-LD, microdata, and RDFa

The invoice can be written three ways. JSON-LD sits in a separate block, inside the <script type="application/ld+json"> tag, without mixing with the visible text. ⁵ Microdata and RDFa use attributes attached to the tags of the text itself. ⁵

Google writes that the three formats are equally fine, as long as the markup is valid. ⁵ And it recommends JSON-LD when your site’s setup allows it. The stated reason: it is the easiest to maintain at scale, with fewer user errors. ⁵

If you use WordPress, Wix, or Shopify, you usually do not write the block by hand. Google suggests looking for the system’s search engine settings page or a plugin. ⁵ And it reads JSON-LD even when JavaScript injects it into the page. ⁵

Two jobs for the same markup

Here lies the confusion that the whole first page repeats. Google does two jobs with the same markup.

The first is understanding the page and the world it describes. ⁵ The second is showing the page in the results with a richer look, with stars, a price, a photo, or a date. This is called a rich result. ⁵ ⁷

The second job has rules. The page must include every required property for the type, or it is left out. ⁸ It must follow the general guidelines and the ones for its type. ⁸ And even with everything right, Google does not guarantee the display. The algorithm may decide that a plain text result serves people better. ⁸

Two texts on the first page go further and tie markup to ranking position. ³ In the Google pages I read for this piece, the promise is a different one. Google understands the page, and the page becomes eligible for a rich result.

The rich results gallery, and what left it

The official list is called the structured data gallery. In the version updated on June 15, 2026, it has 25 features. ⁷ Article, breadcrumb, event, job posting, local business, organization, product, recipe, review snippet, and video are among them. ⁷

What is missing from it counts as much as what is there. The documentation’s changelog shows the gallery shrinking. ²

Feature	What Google recorded
How-to	stopped appearing and lost its documentation in September 2023
Sitelinks search box	gone from Search; documentation removed in November 2024
Course info, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement, and vehicle listing	documentation removed in September 2025
Practice problem	documentation removed in January 2026
FAQ	gone from Search since May 7, 2026; documentation removed in June

Dataset markup stays on the list, with a caveat. In November 2025, Google clarified that it serves only Dataset Search, a specialized search for data, outside the main Google Search. ²

Services have no type in the gallery. A person does not get a result of their own either. ⁷ People appear through the profile page, designed for creators who post in online communities. ⁹ The case of star ratings promised from a site’s own reviews is in the piece on SEO for restaurants.

The practical rule follows from this. Before you pay for markup sold as a Search highlight, ask for the Google page that describes that highlight. If nobody can show you the page, the highlight is only a promise.

The visible-content rule and the manual action

Go back to the weigh station. The inspector can open the trailer and compare the cargo with the invoice. Google works the same way.

The general guidelines say not to mark up content that readers cannot see. The documentation’s example: if the JSON-LD describes a performer, the page body describes that same performer. ⁸ The markup has to be a true representation of the page content. ⁸ No marking up irrelevant or misleading content, such as fake reviews. ⁸ And no impersonating a person or company, or misrepresenting ownership, affiliation, or purpose. ⁸

The introduction page adds two safeguards. Don’t create an empty page just to hold markup. And don’t mark up information the user cannot see, even when that information is accurate. ⁵

Breaking these rules can lead to a manual action. ⁸ The Search Console help gives examples: marking up invisible content, marking up irrelevant or misleading content, and other manipulation. One of the notices on its list covers markup that does not match the content. ¹⁰

The effect is written down, too. A structured data manual action means the page loses eligibility to appear as a rich result. The documentation adds that it does not affect how the page ranks in Google web search. ⁸

What Google’s AI guide says

On July 10, 2026, Google updated its guide to optimizing for generative AI features in Search. ¹¹ One section lists what you can ignore. One of the items has a blunt title: overfocusing on structured data. ¹¹

The text says structured data is not a requirement for generative AI search. And there is no special schema.org markup to add. ¹¹ Right after that, the guide recommends keeping the markup as part of your SEO, because it helps with rich result eligibility. ¹¹

The page on AI features and your website, from December 2025, lists the best practices. One of them is markup that matches the visible text on the page. ¹² The weigh station rule applies here, too.

There is independent measurement pointing the same way. In May 2026, Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD, against 4,000 control pages. ¹³ None of the three platforms measured showed a meaningful gain in citations: AI Overviews, AI Mode, and ChatGPT. ¹³ The authors state the limit. Every page in the study was already heavily cited before the markup. ¹³

In my book SEO de Entidade, published in Portuguese, the verdict on markup fits on one line. Do it for the right reason, and never as a switch for citation. ¹⁴ The right reason is the subject of the next section.

The part that stays: saying who is who

Remember the second half of the definition? Google uses markup to gather information about people and companies. ⁵ For your company, this is where the work pays off, with or without a rich result.

The organization documentation gives the reason. Markup on the homepage helps Google understand the company’s administrative details. It also helps tell your organization apart from others in the results. ¹⁵ Some properties work behind the scenes, only for that disambiguation. Others change what appears, like the logo in the knowledge panel. ¹⁵

The same page says where to put it. On the homepage, or on a single page that describes the organization, such as the about page. It does not need to be on every page. ¹⁵ That single page has a name and rules of its own, in the piece on the entity home.

Three fields carry the identity. The name, spelled the way the company spells it everywhere. The site URL, which the documentation says helps Google uniquely identify the organization. ¹⁵ And the list of profiles.

Think of the end of a résumé, the list of references. Each contact leads to someone who can speak about the same person. In markup, the list of pages on other sites about the same company is called sameAs. Google’s example is a profile on a social network or a review site. ¹⁵

Schema.org defines the property as a reference page that unambiguously indicates the item’s identity. Its examples are Wikipedia, Wikidata, and the official website. ¹⁶ Google writes that it can make general use of sameAs, beyond the types it documents. ⁵

For identifiers, the documentation lists fields such as the tax ID, which must match the country in the address. ¹⁵ My reading is that a US company puts its EIN, its tax ID, in that field. In Brazil, where we are based, that field takes the CNPJ, the company registry number.

For people, the rule appears in the article documentation, in the author field. The author’s URL should lead to a page that uniquely identifies them, like a bio or a social profile. ¹⁷ sameAs works as an alternative, and Google says it understands both when disambiguating authors. ¹⁷ It also asks for the right type: Person for people, Organization for companies. ¹⁷

The book gives the rule on who declares. The domain that receives corroboration from outside is the same one that declares sameAs for the rest. The official page points to the profiles, and the profiles point back. ¹⁸ What happens to those declarations in Google’s catalog of entities is in the piece on Google’s Knowledge Graph.

The @id, the number that ties the blocks together

Think of a hospital chart. The blood test, the prescription, and the X-ray arrive on separate sheets. They all carry the same number, and nobody mixes up two patients named John Smith.

In markup, the blocks also arrive separately: one describes the company, another the person, another the article. JSON-LD gives each thing it describes an identifier, written as an address. ¹⁹ This is called a node identifier, and in code it is written @id. ¹⁹

With it, the person’s block says who they work for by pointing to the company’s number. The company’s record does not have to be repeated. Google’s guidelines use the same device to link a recipe to its video. ⁸

The number has to be stable. If the company’s @id changes, the old links point to something that no longer exists. My reading is that it follows the rule of the official page: an address that does not change.

One caveat about sources. To identify the company, Google’s documentation points to the site URL. ¹⁵ In 2021, Google removed @id from the local business documentation, saying the URL alone is a sufficient identifier. ² The @id is your own tool, for tying the blocks together. It does not replace the URL.

A minimal example, checked in the validator

The example below is made up. The domains example.com, example.org, and example.net are reserved for documentation and belong to nobody. ²⁰ Empresa Exemplo (Portuguese for Example Company) and Ana Exemplo do not exist. The values are in Portuguese because this is the exact code we validated.

bloco para copiar

[
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "Organization",
    "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organizacao",
    "name": "Empresa Exemplo",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/",
    "logo": "https://www.example.com/logo.png",
    "sameAs": [
      "https://www.example.org/perfil/empresa-exemplo",
      "https://www.example.net/empresas/empresa-exemplo"
    ]
  },
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "Person",
    "@id": "https://www.example.com/equipe/ana-exemplo/#pessoa",
    "name": "Ana Exemplo",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/equipe/ana-exemplo/",
    "worksFor": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organizacao" },
    "sameAs": [
      "https://www.example.org/perfil/ana-exemplo"
    ]
  }
]

There are two blocks. The first describes the company, with its name, site, logo, and two profiles on other sites. The second describes the person, with her page on the team and one outside profile. The worksFor property, which in the vocabulary says who the person works for, points only to the company’s @id. ¹⁶

I ran the code through the schema.org validator on September 14. The result was zero errors and zero warnings. ²¹ The validator merged the two blocks into a single record: Ana Exemplo works for Empresa Exemplo, with the company’s logo and profiles. ²¹

On a real site, the block goes inside the <script type="application/ld+json"> tag, on the page that shows this information. ⁵ Everything it declares must be on the page, in plain view of the reader. ⁸ In practice, the sameAs profiles usually live in the footer links.

A clinic swaps the generic type for the most specific one, and links its staff through other properties. Google asks for the most specific type that applies. ⁸ ¹⁵ The full case, with doctors and locations, is in the piece on SEO for clinics.

The three tools and what each one answers

Each tool answers a different question. Using the wrong one gets you the right answer to another question.

Rich Results Test. Google’s tool says whether the page can get a rich result in Google Search. It accepts a URL or a code snippet. ²² One detail catches a lot of people. The test ignores comments inside JSON-LD, but the standard does not support comments there. The help page says to remove them before publishing. ²²

Schema Markup Validator. It checks whether the code follows the schema.org vocabulary, for any type, including types Google does not use. It grew out of Google’s old Structured Data Testing Tool, handed to the schema.org community in 2021. ²³ This is where the example above passed.

Search Console. It shows what Google found on the published site. The rich result reports, under Enhancements, list valid and invalid items by type. ²⁴ They are a sample, and they exist only for the types on the help page’s list. Organization is not on it. ²⁴ For the company’s official page, the check is the URL Inspection tool. ²⁴ And the Manual Actions report shows whether any markup got a manual action. ¹⁰

To measure the effect, Google describes a before-and-after test. Pick pages with no markup, several months of Search Console data, and little seasonal variation. Add the markup, confirm it with URL Inspection, and follow the Performance report for a few months. ⁵

The rest of technical SEO, from indexing to speed, is in the technical SEO section.

The one-afternoon check

Set aside your site’s homepage and the about page for your company.

Open the source code. Press Ctrl+U and search for ld+json. With no block, the site declares nothing in JSON-LD.
Read the type and the name. Does the type describe the company, and is the name spelled the way it is everywhere else? ¹⁵
Check the URL and the @id. Is the address that of the official page, and is the @id the same on every page that mentions the company?
Open every sameAs link. Is each profile the company’s, active, and linking back to the site? ¹⁸
Compare with the screen. Does everything the block declares appear on the visible page? ⁸
Paste the code into the validator and into Google’s test. Write down what each one flags. ²² ²³
Look for plugin leftovers. FAQ markup has not produced a rich result since May 2026. ² Whoever sold it as a highlight needs to show the Google page that describes it.

From now on, when someone offers you structured data, you will ask for two things. The gallery page that describes the promised result. And the list of profiles the markup will declare as your company.

The first tells you whether a rich result exists for your case. The second tells Google who stands behind the site.

Open your homepage today, press Ctrl+U, and search for ld+json.

Frequently asked questions

Does structured data improve your position on Google?

The Google pages read for this piece promise two things. A better understanding of the page, and eligibility for a rich result, with no guarantee it will show. ⁵ ⁸ Even a manual action for bad markup, per the documentation, removes the rich result and does not affect ranking. ⁸

Do I need structured data to show up in Google’s AI features?

No. The July 2026 guide says markup is not a requirement for generative AI search, and there is no special schema for it. ¹¹ The same guide recommends keeping the markup for rich results. ¹¹

Which format should I use: JSON-LD, microdata, or RDFa?

All three are equally fine for Google, if the markup is valid. ⁵ Google recommends JSON-LD when your site allows it, because it is the easiest to maintain. ⁵

Does FAQ markup still produce a result on Google?

No. Google stopped showing that result on May 7, 2026, and removed the documentation in June. ² Since September 2023, it had appeared only for well-known government and health websites. ²

What is the difference between the Rich Results Test and the schema.org validator?

Google’s test answers whether the page can get a rich result in Google Search. ²² The validator checks whether the code follows the schema.org vocabulary, for any type. ²³

Notes and sources

Live reading of the Google Brazil results page for “dados estruturados seo” (structured data SEO), September 14, 2026, at https://www.google.com.br/search?q=dados+estruturados+seo&hl=pt-BR&gl=br&pws=0, in the author’s own browser tab. The search ran on Google in Brazil, where we are based, with the interface in Portuguese. The AI Overview said rich results “Permitem exibir recursos visuais na página de pesquisa (SERP), como estrelas de avaliação, preços, tempo de preparo de receitas e perguntas frequentes” (let you display visual features on the search results page, such as star ratings, prices, recipe cook times, and FAQs), and cited the Rich Results Test. Eight organic results on the first page, in order: Google for Developers, SEO Happy Hour, Conversion, Educa Mais Brasil, Mailchimp, GoDaddy, QuestionPro, and Semrush. Accessed September 14, 2026.
Google Search Central, “Latest Google Search documentation updates,” https://developers.google.com/search/updates, page last updated September 8, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Entries used: July 22, 2021, “Removed the @id property from the Local business documentation. The url property alone is a sufficient identifier to understand the local business”; September 14, 2023, “Removed the How-to structured data documentation, as this rich result is no longer shown in search results”, and the restriction of FAQ to “well-known, authoritative government and health websites”; November 29, 2024, removal of the sitelinks search box documentation, “no longer available in Google Search results”; September 9, 2025, removal of the documentation for “course info, estimated salary, learning video, special announcement, and vehicle listing”; November 2025, “Dataset structured data is only used by Dataset Search, and not Google Search”; January 6, 2026, removal of the “practice problem” documentation; May 8, 2026, “This feature will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026”, on FAQ; and June 15, 2026, “Removed documentation for the FAQ rich result feature”.
SEO Genome survey, September 14, 2026, of the texts on the first page in note 1, downloaded and read the same day; all are in Portuguese. The SEO Happy Hour glossary, April 17, 2024, https://www.seohappyhour.com/glossario/dados-estruturados/, lists the “Caixa de pesquisa de sitelinks” (sitelinks search box) among the results, and FAQ as shown only for government and health sites. The Conversion guide, February 13, 2026, https://www.conversion.com.br/blog/dados-estruturados, says FAQ and HowTo markup can produce rich snippets. The GoDaddy text, December 20, 2024, https://www.godaddy.com/resources/br/artigos/o-que-sao-dados-estruturados-seo, says the mechanism improves a page’s ranking score; the Mailchimp text, https://mailchimp.com/pt-br/resources/structured-data/, says structured data helps pages rank. The Educa Mais Brasil text, March 8, 2024, https://www.educamaisbrasil.com.br/educacao/carreira/o-que-sao-dados-estruturados-e-qual-a-importancia-em-seo, opens with data organized in tables and gives an Excel spreadsheet as its example. The others read were https://www.questionpro.com/blog/pt-br/dados-estruturados/ and https://pt.semrush.com/blog/o-que-e-schema-dados-estruturados-para-iniciantes/. In the six third-party texts downloaded in full, there is no mention of sameAs, of @id, or of Google’s July 2026 AI guide; the Educa Mais Brasil text, which loads by script, was read in the browser. Accessed September 14, 2026.
SEO Genome measurement in Semrush, Brazil database, September 14, 2026. “dados estruturados” (structured data): 590 searches a month; among the top ten organic results, seven deal with tabular data, databases, and data science (IBM, QuestionPro, AWS, Elastic, RNP, Oracle, and Databricks), and three with SEO (two Google pages and Conversion). “dados estruturados seo”: 40 searches a month, with no stored results snapshot in the Brazil database or in the mobile database. SEO Genome recorded the same picture on September 8, 2026.
Google Search Central, “Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/intro-structured-data, page last updated December 10, 2025. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content”; “Google uses structured data that it finds on the web to understand the content of the page, as well as to gather information about the web and the world in general, such as information about the people, books, or companies that are included in the markup”; “you should rely on the Google Search Central documentation as definitive for Google Search behavior, rather than the schema.org documentation”; “Google can make general use of the sameAs property and other schema.org structured data”; “all 3 formats are equally fine for Google, as long as the markup is valid”; JSON-LD “embedded in a <script> tag”, with “The markup is not interleaved with the user-visible text” and “Google can read JSON-LD data when it is dynamically injected into the page’s contents, such as by JavaScript code”; “Google recommends using JSON-LD for structured data if your site’s setup allows it, as it’s the easiest solution for website owners to implement and maintain at scale (in other words, less prone to user errors)”; the suggestion of a search engine settings page or a plugin for Wix, WordPress, and Shopify; “Don’t create blank or empty pages just to hold structured data, and don’t add structured data about information that is not visible to the user, even if the information is accurate”; and the section on measuring the effect, with pages that use no structured data, “several months of data in Search Console”, the URL Inspection tool, and the Performance report.
Schema.org, “About Schema.org,” https://schema.org/docs/about.html, vocabulary version 30.0, March 19, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passage: “In addition to people from the founding companies (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex), there is substantial participation by the larger Web community”.
Google Search Central, “Structured data markup that Google Search supports,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery, page last updated June 15, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. The page says Google uses the markup to “show that content in a richer appearance in search results, which is called a rich result” and lists 25 features: Article, Breadcrumb, Carousel, Course list, Dataset, Discussion forum, Education Q&A, Employer aggregate rating, Event, Image metadata, Job posting, Local business, Math solver, Movie, Organization, Product, Profile page, Q&A, Recipe, Review snippet, Software app, Speakable, Subscription and paywalled content, Vacation rental, and Video. None for FAQ, How-to, services, or people as a result of their own.
Google Search Central, “General structured data guidelines,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies, page last updated July 10, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly according to the Rich Results Test”; “Using structured data enables a feature to be present, it does not guarantee that it will be present” and “or even that a text result is best”; “Don’t mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page. For example, if the JSON-LD markup describes a performer, the HTML body must describe that same performer”; “Don’t mark up irrelevant or misleading content, such as fake reviews”; “Don’t impersonate any person or organization, or misrepresent your ownership, affiliation, or primary purpose”; “Your structured data must be a true representation of the page content”; “Items that are missing required properties are not eligible for rich results”; “Try to use the most specific applicable type”; the use of @id to link a recipe to its video; and “A structured data manual action means that a page loses eligibility for appearance as a rich result; it doesn’t affect how the page ranks in Google web search.”
Google Search Central, “Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/profile-page, page last updated September 8, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passage: “ProfilePage markup is designed for any site where creators (either people or organizations) share first-hand perspectives”, with a focus on creators “that post in an online community”.
Search Console Help, “Manual actions report,” https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9044175. Accessed September 14, 2026. In the “Structured data issue” section: “marking up content that is invisible to users, marking up irrelevant or misleading content, or other manipulative behavior”, with the notice “Structured data does not match content” on the list.
Google Search Central, “Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide, page last updated July 10, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. In the section on what you can ignore, the item “Overfocusing on structured data”: “Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add. However, it’s a good idea to continue using it as part of your overall SEO strategy, as it helps with being eligible for rich results on Google Search.”
Google Search Central, “AI features and your website,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features, page last updated December 10, 2025. Accessed September 14, 2026. In the list of best practices: “Making sure your structured data matches the visible text on the page”; and “There’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.”
Louise Linehan, with Xibeijia Guan and review by Ryan Law, “We Tracked 1,885 Pages Adding Schema. AI Citations Barely Moved.,” Ahrefs, May 11, 2026, updated June 9, 2026, https://ahrefs.com/blog/schema-ai-citations/. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “We tracked 1,885 web pages that added JSON-LD schema between August 2025 and March 2026, matched them against 4,000 control pages”; “Adding schema produced no major uplift in citations on any platform”, with a 4.6% drop in AI Overviews and gains of 2.4% in AI Mode and 2.2% in ChatGPT, the last two described as “Statistically indistinguishable from zero”; and the limit “Every page in the dataset had 100+ AI Overview citations in February 2025, before any schema was added”.
Daniel Sócrates, SEO de Entidade (published in Portuguese), 2026, chapter 11, “Os cinco mitos contra a evidência” (The five myths against the evidence), charge 4. The chapter’s verdict: mark up for the right reason, and never as a switch for citation.
Google Search Central, “Organization (Organization) structured data,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/organization, page last updated September 8, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “Adding organization structured data to your home page can help Google better understand your organization’s administrative details and disambiguate your organization in search results”; “Some properties are used behind the scenes to disambiguate your organization from other organizations (like iso6523 and naics), while others can influence visual elements in Search results (such as which logo is shown in Search results and your knowledge panel)”; “We recommend placing this information on your home page, or a single page that describes your organization, for example the about us page. You don’t need to include it on every page of your site”; “We recommend using the most specific schema.org subtype of Organization”; on url, “This helps Google uniquely identify your organization”; on sameAs, “The URL of a page on another website with additional information about your organization, if applicable. For example, a URL to your organization’s profile page on a social media or review site”; and on taxID, “Make sure taxID matches the country that you provided in the address field”. The reading that a company’s tax ID (the EIN in the US, the CNPJ in Brazil) goes in this field is the author’s.
Schema.org, “sameAs,” https://schema.org/sameAs, and “worksFor,” https://schema.org/worksFor, version 30.0, March 19, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. sameAs: “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item’s identity. E.g. the URL of the item’s Wikipedia page, Wikidata entry, or official website.” worksFor: “Organizations that the person works for.”
Google Search Central, “Article (Article, NewsArticle, BlogPosting) structured data,” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/article, page last updated September 8, 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: on author.url, “A link to a web page that uniquely identifies the author of the article. For example, the author’s social media page, an “about me” page, or a bio page”; “You can use the sameAs property as an alternative. Google can understand both sameAs and url when disambiguating authors”; and “Use the Person type for people, and the Organization type for organizations.”
Daniel Sócrates, SEO de Entidade (published in Portuguese), 2026, chapter 12, “Dê à sua entidade uma casa oficial” (Give Your Entity an Official Home). Practical rule: the domain that receives corroboration from outside is the same one that declares sameAs for everything else; the official page points to the profiles, and the other domains point back.
W3C, “JSON-LD 1.1: A JSON-based Serialization for Linked Data,” W3C Recommendation, July 16, 2020, https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld11/, section 3.3, “Node Identifiers.” Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “To be able to externally reference nodes in an RDF graph, it is important that nodes have an identifier” and “In JSON-LD, a node is identified using the @id keyword”.
IANA, “Example Domains,” https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains, last revised May 13, 2017. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “a number of domains such as example.com and example.org are maintained for documentation purposes” and “They are not available for registration or transfer”, based on RFC 2606 and RFC 6761.
SEO Genome record, September 14, 2026. The example code, inside <script type="application/ld+json">, was submitted to the Schema Markup Validator, https://validator.schema.org/. Result: 0 errors and 0 warnings; the validator showed a single item of type Person, with the worksFor property resolved to the Organization item with the same @id, carrying name, url, logo, and the two sameAs values. Accessed September 14, 2026.
Search Console Help, “Rich Results Test,” https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7445569. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: testing by URL or “For a code snippet”; and “The Rich Results test tool ignores comments within JSON-LD blocks. However, that behavior is not supported by the JSON-LD standard and so might result in errors in actual usage. Be sure to remove any comments from JSON-LD before publishing your final page.”
Google Search Central Blog, “An update on the Structured Data Testing Tool,” December 15, 2020, with updates on May 11 and August 9, 2021, https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/12/structured-data-testing-tool-update. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: the tool would migrate “to a new domain serving the schema.org community”, with the job to “check syntax and compliance of markup with schema.org standards”, including for “a type that we don’t explicitly consume at this time”; and, on May 11, 2021, “Schema.org announced the new home for the structured data validator previously known as the Structured Data Testing Tool (SDTT)”, the Schema Markup Validator.
Search Console Help, “Rich result report overview,” https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7552505. Accessed September 14, 2026. Passages: “The reports aren’t a comprehensive list of all detected items. They show a sample of detected items”; “Use the URL Inspection tool to see if URLs not listed in the report have detected the structured data”; “Locate the reports under Enhancements in the navigation bar”; and the list of reports, which includes neither Organization nor Local business.

Structured Data in SEO: What Google Reads, What It Shows, and What It Dropped