Structured data

Structured data is the umbrella concept; JSON-LD is the preferred syntax and Schema.org is the vocabulary it uses. It doesn't directly raise rankings, but it makes pages eligible for rich results and helps engines and AI answer boxes extract facts — an author, a rating, an event date — without guessing from prose. The recurring failure mode is drift: markup that once matched the page but now advertises a price or rating the page no longer shows, which risks a manual action.