JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a JSON-based format used to embed structured data (schema markup) into a web page. It is the structured data format officially recommended by Google.
Advantages of JSON-LD:
- Independent of HTML markup, it is added as a single
<script>block in the page’s<head>or<body>section. - Content edits do not break the structured data.
- It can be dynamically injected with JavaScript.
- It is much more readable and maintainable than Microdata.
A typical example of a JSON-LD block:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Article title",
"author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Author Name" }
}
</script>Multiple schema types can be combined in a single block using @graph.
Tip: Validate every JSON-LD you publish with Google’s “Rich Results Test” tool. Invalid structured data does not generate rich snippets and rarely results in a penalty.