Using JSON-LD for Easy Structured Data

The Easier Way to Schema

By David R Lindahl - http://www.uvyu.me/now

Most of the internet is “unstructured data” and to Google it looks kind of like this.

Your Content is your Site’s Biggest Asset

But, even if it has a purpose, only you may know what it is.

Why let Google decide what’s important and how it’s related to other things on the Internet?

And even if the value is obvious, why leave it to up to them?

Structured Data lets you clearly define relationships and the properties of things in a way that normal written language never can.

Vacuum Empty Boxes

Trash Bag

Soap

Disposable Rags

Disinfectant

Cleaning Supplies

For the search engines, this makes everything look so much more organized.

Making it easier for the Search Engines and Users to understand the value of your content and how it relates to other information accross the internet.

Forms of Structured Data (Schema) Google Recognizes

• Microdata – Very descriptive, difficult to implement– Must wrap existing content– Restrictive

• RDFA– Deprecated and difficult to implement

• JSON-LD– Easiest to implement– Increasingly accepted– Doesn’t require wrapping of content

Microdata vs JSON-LD

What they look like….

Argument for JSON-LD• Scalable structured data– Allows us to add semantic data to our pages

without having the content on the page. • Fact: The Semantic Web relies on there being

lots and lots of content connected and we’re not going to get to that point with Microdata or RDFa. JSON-LD is more likely to get accepted by the masses.

Things to be careful of…

• Try not to add too much markup to content that isn’t relevant or doesn’t exist in the visible content. Google and Bing may punish your site. They treat it like white text on a white background.

Now you can create JSON-LD with a Tool

https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/

And the tool is by Google!

What Google Structured Data Testing Tool Shows:

https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/

Google’s Markup Helper Just the Beginning

• JSON-LD allows for defining context with various ontologies– Good Relations - Used in Ecommerce – Productontology.org – FOAF - Used to quickly define relationships

between people, products, and things.• See http://json-ld.org/playground/ for ideas.

What can it be used for?

• Easily marking up pages where it is hard to add microdata

• Rich Snippets• Video Schema• Branding of Youtube Videos– When used in conjunction with Open Graph

tagging.

Use Case

• www.diffen.com • Lost video snippets from search results last

Spring. • Using Json LD with OpenGraph tagging allows

them now to get snippets back and brand Youtube videos in Search!

Youtube Video Thumbnail Diffen OG:Image

Resourceshttps://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/

https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/

http://json-ld.org/playground/

http://www.diffen.com

http://www.uvyu.me/now