Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Benefits/drawbacks to different Schema markup languages (ie. JSON-LD, Microdata, RDFa)
-
Just a question (or questions) I have wondered about. What's the difference, besides the actual encoding, between the three? Why have three? Why not just the one? Seems to me that Microdata is the easiest, but maybe I am wrong. Is there a reason to use one versus another? I have not found anything explaining this on schema.org - I suppose this is just a discussion versus getting one right or wrong answer. I am just curious of the opinions of people in the SEO MOZ community. Unless of course there is one answer. I'll take that too.
-
Great, Peter. Thanks for the answers. I now understand the difference. Much appreciated.
-
That's right. JSON-LD doesn't require change of HTML compared with Microdata and RDFa. And this is one of answers why JSON-LD is beautiful. Second is because you can make changes in JSON-LD without touching HTML. Like adding new fields, parameters, etc.
About placing. I think that this can be just on home page. Placing in each page is pure rich snippet spam.
-
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the answer. So, as I understand it, and keep in mind this is coming from someone that is not very code-savvy, with JSON-LD, one could put the script anywhere in the HTML, the header, the body, the footer, etc. and it won't show up on the actual page, but the search engine will be able to read it. This implies that no changing or tweaking of the actual HTML is necessary, no messing around with 's or
's like you would with Microdata or RDFa, correct?
A follow up question, if I may, how would you implement something like a "local business" schema with JSON, would you put the script on every page, in the footer perhaps? Or would you just put it on the home page? Does it matter?
Thanks
-
So far we have Microdata, RDFa and JSON-LD.
I'll cover Microdata and RDFa in same because they're similar. So they both are addition to HTML attributes indicating what Schema.org field names correspond with what user-visible text on the page. Works perfect but need lot of developer work and designer changes. Because both backend (admin interface) and frontend (HTML) must be changed. And there are many issues that can be messed - incorrect implementation, "rich snippet spam", software bugs, etc. Look easy as 1-2-3 but in reality it's pain (PIA) for implementation and support. Example - only product implementation require in backend least 10 edit boxes if they're manual filled.
JSON-LD - it's relative new protocol based on Schema.org. The main benefit is that you split representation layer (HTML) from semantic layer (JSON-LD). In prev. formats - they're same and linked each other. Now they're split. This give you much more freedom than before. You can place HTML data whatever you wish and just add hidden JSON in head or in content that will add semantic marking. This is future (for now).
If you wish to read more about creation of JSON-LD then this article is for you:
http://manu.sporny.org/2014/json-ld-origins-2/
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I add FAQS schema on my homepage?
Hello, can we have the FAQ code on the homepage (staff time)? we have written some questions and answers in the drop-down list on the homepage, and also add the schema code script to one tag of the page, but it does not work!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fbowable0 -
Same product in different categories and duplicate content issues
Hi,I have some questions related to duplicate content on e-commerce websites. 1)If a single product goes to multiple categories (eg. A black elegant dress could be listed in two categories like "black dresses" and "elegant dresses") is it considered duplicate content even if the product url is unique? e.g www.website.com/black-dresses/black-elegant-dress duplicated> same content from two different paths www.website.com/elegant-dresses/black-elegant-dress duplicated> same content from two different paths www.website.com/black-elegant-dress unique url > this is the way my products urls look like Does google perceive this as duplicated content? The path to the content is only one, so it shouldn't be seen as duplicated content, though the product is repeated in different categories.This is the most important concern I actually have. It is a small thing but if I set this wrong all website would be affected and thus penalised, so I need to know how I can handle it. 2- I am using wordpress + woocommerce. The website is built with categories and subcategories. When I create a product in the product page backend is it advisable to select just the lowest subcategory or is it better to select both main category and subcategory in which the product belongs? I usually select the subcategory alone. Looking forward to your reply and suggestions. thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cinzia091 -
Schema for restaurants and menus?
Hi all, Anyone have experience with using Schema for restaurants other than the normal local business NAP? Is there a way to use Schema markup for food menus as well? Examples and schema code much appreciated 🙂 Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
[Very Urgent] More 100 "/search/adult-site-keywords" Crawl errors under Search Console
I just opened my G Search Console and was shocked to see more than 150 Not Found errors under Crawl errors. Mine is a Wordpress site (it's consistently updated too): Here's how they show up: Example 1: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html/feed/rss2 Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html Example 2 (this surprised me the most when I looked at the linked from data): URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/3/ Linked From: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/2/ (this is showing as if it's from our own site) http://a-spammy-adult-site.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html Example 3: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html How do I address this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rmehta10 -
Does having a different sub domain for your Landing Page and Blog affect your overall SEO benefits and Ranking?
We have a domain www.spintadigital.com that is hosted with dreamhost and we also have a seperate subdomain blog.spintadigital.com which is hosted in the Ghost platform and we are also using Unbounce landing pages with the sub domain get.spintadigital.com. I wanted to know whether having subdomain like this would affect the traffic metric and ineffect affect the SEO and Rankings of our site. I think it does not affect the increase in domain authority, but in places like similar web i get different traffic metrics for the different domains. As far as i can see in many of the metrics these are considered as seperate websites. We are currently concentrating more on our blogs and wanted to make sure that it does help in the overall domain. We do not have the bandwidth to promote three different websites, and hence need the community's help to understand what is the best option to take this forward.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vinodh-spintadigital0 -
SameAs Markup for Google Knowledge Graph
I am trying to get my content in the Google Knowledge graph. Everything I've read thus far about Knowledge Graph tells us how to get in for branded terms (e.g. company name or your own name). But I am looking for ways to have my content be indexed and shown in Google graph. For example, if you search for "mayonnaise for hair" you will see Knowledge graph show us a snippet from an article on RealSimple.com. **How do you get your content to show here? ** I've been reading a lot about SameAs markup, but it seems to only help for branded terms, so companies can have a knowledge box for their brand. But does it help for non-branded keywords? I appreciate any advice. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TMI.com1 -
Index process multi language website for different countries
We are in charge of a website with 7 languages for 16 countries. There are only slight content differences by countries (google.de | google.co.uk). The website is set-up with the correct language & country annotation e.g. de/DE/ | de/CH/ | en/GB/ | en/IE. All unwanted annotations are blocked by robots.txt. The «hreflang alternate» are also set. The objective is, to make the website visible in local search engines. Therefore we have submitted a overview sitemap connected with a sitemap per country. The sitemap has been submitted now for quite a while, but Google has indexed only 10 % of the content. We are looking for suggestion to boost the index process.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imsi0 -
Schema.org Markup for Currencies in Multiple Countries.
Hello - Just getting in to a bit of Markup for rich snippets etc. This site sells from New Zealand , but our target market is Australia and most of our sales are there and we locate it there in Webmaster tools. Our Site changes currency / location automatically detecting IP Addresses. So -primarily I have a product with multiple variations on one page that I want to show offers in Google.com.au - in Australian Dollars Syntol Probiotic
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear
90 caps $25AUD 180 Caps $50AUD 360 Caps 75AUD Here is the page http://www.return2health.net/syntol.html Ideas around that? Ideally I would like to add some country specific data to it I guess..?0