Schema markup is structured data added to a web page's HTML that uses the standardized Schema.org vocabulary to explicitly describe what the page's content means — so search engines can display richer, more informative search results. Where regular HTML tells browsers how to render content visually, schema tells search engines what the content represents semantically. Common schema types include Article, FAQPage (expandable Q&A in search results), HowTo, LocalBusiness, Product (with price, availability, and star ratings), Event, and VideoObject. Schema is delivered as JSON-LD (a JavaScript object in a <script> tag — Google's preferred method), Microdata embedded in HTML attributes, or RDFa. Pages with eligible schema can qualify for Google "rich results" — enhanced SERP features that display additional visual information and consistently outperform standard blue links on click-through rate.
Glossary entry