Structured Data and Rich Results: A Beginner's Guide

When you read a web page, you instantly understand that "Mon-Fri 9-5" is a set of opening hours and "4.8 stars" is a rating. Search engines are good at reading pages too, but they still benefit from clear labels. Structured data is a standardized way of adding those labels, so a search engine can be confident about what each piece of information means.

Done well, structured data can make a page eligible for rich results: search listings that show extra details such as review stars, prices, event dates or breadcrumbs instead of just a plain link. Done badly, it wastes effort or can even cause problems.

This guide explains the concepts in plain English, with a focus on what's realistic for a small business. One point up front: Google states plainly that it does not guarantee structured data will show up in search results, even when the markup is correct.

What structured data is

Structured data is information added to a web page's code, in a predictable format, that describes the page's content. It usually doesn't change what visitors see. Instead, it sits behind the scenes, saying in effect: "This page is about a business. Its name is this, its address is this, and its phone number is this."

Google supports three formats for writing it: JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa. Google recommends JSON-LD in most cases because it is the easiest to add and maintain. It is a self-contained block of code kept separate from the visible text, rather than woven through it. Google also says all three formats are equally fine for its purposes.

Schema.org: the shared vocabulary

Labels only help if everyone agrees on what they mean. Schema.org provides that shared vocabulary. It is a collaborative project founded by major search engines, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex, that defines types of things, such as Organization, Product, Event or LocalBusiness, and the properties each type can have, such as name, address or opening hours.

Schema.org defines far more types and properties than any search engine uses for special features. Google's own documentation lists which ones it supports for rich results and which properties are required for each, and Google says its documentation is the definitive guide to how Google Search behaves where the two differ.

What rich results are, and why they aren't guaranteed

Rich results are enhanced search listings. Depending on the kind of content, they might include review stars, product prices and availability, event dates, recipe details or a breadcrumb trail showing where a page sits within your site.

Correct structured data makes a page eligible for these features, but Google decides whether to show them. Google lists several reasons a rich result might not appear, including that its systems judged a different presentation more useful for a particular search, that the markup doesn't represent the page's main content, or that the page doesn't meet the relevant guidelines.

Supported features also change over time. FAQ rich results, for example, were once widely shown, were limited to well-known government and health websites in 2023, and stopped appearing in Google Search altogether in May 2026. It is wise to treat any rich result as a bonus rather than something to build your plans around.

LocalBusiness basics

For a business with a physical location, the most relevant type is usually LocalBusiness, which schema.org defines as a particular physical business or branch of an organization. Google uses this markup to help it present business details, for example in the knowledge panel that can appear when someone searches for a business by name.

Google's documentation lists two required properties, name and address, and recommends several others, including:

• telephone: the main customer contact number.
• url: the web page for that specific location.
• openingHoursSpecification: your regular opening hours.
• geo: the location's latitude and longitude.
• priceRange: a rough indication of your price level.

Google also advises using the most specific subtype available. A hypothetical dental practice would use Dentist rather than the general LocalBusiness type, and a restaurant would use Restaurant.

Make sure the details match your visible website content and your other listings. One common misunderstanding involves review stars: Google's review snippet guidelines say that if a business controls the reviews about itself, its pages using LocalBusiness or Organization markup are not eligible for star ratings in search results.

Rules worth knowing

Google's general structured data guidelines come down to honesty and relevance:

• Mark up only content that visitors can actually see on the page.
• Keep the information accurate and current.
• Don't describe a page as something it isn't.
• Don't block marked-up pages from Google's crawler.

Google can take manual action against spammy or misleading structured data, which can make a site's pages ineligible for rich results. Following the guidelines from the start is far easier than recovering from that.

Testing your markup

Always test structured data before and after publishing. Useful free tools include:

• Google's Rich Results Test, which checks a live URL or a pasted code snippet and shows which rich result types Google can detect.
• The Schema Markup Validator from schema.org, which checks markup against the full schema.org vocabulary rather than only Google's supported features.
• The rich result reports in Google Search Console, which show errors and warnings across your whole site once it has been crawled.

If your site runs on a content management system such as WordPress, SEO plugins often generate basic structured data automatically. It is still worth running a few pages through the Rich Results Test to confirm what is being produced and that the details are correct.

Key takeaways

• Structured data labels your content in a standard format, usually JSON-LD, using the schema.org vocabulary.
• It can make pages eligible for rich results, but Google never guarantees they will appear, and supported features change.
• LocalBusiness markup needs at least a name and address; use the most specific subtype you can.
• Only mark up accurate information that visitors can see on the page.
• Test with the Rich Results Test, the Schema Markup Validator and Search Console.

Sources

• Google Search Central, Introduction to structured data markup
• Google Search Central, General structured data guidelines
• Google Search Central, Local business structured data
• Google Search Central, Review snippet structured data
• Google Search Central, FAQ structured data
• Schema.org, LocalBusiness