Definition

JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a lightweight format for encoding structured data that sits inside a `<script type="application/ld+json">` block in a page's HTML.

JSON-LD lets a publisher describe entities on a page — an article, product, event, recipe, organisation — using a vocabulary such as schema.org, without altering the page's visible markup. Google's structured data documentation names JSON-LD as its preferred format because the data is decoupled from the rendered HTML, which makes it simpler to maintain at scale and less likely to drift out of sync when templates change.

Examples

• Article structured data

  A news site adds a JSON-LD block declaring `@type: Article` with the headline, author, datePublished and image. The page becomes eligible for article-style appearance features in Google Search.

• Product on an e-commerce page

  A retailer embeds JSON-LD with `@type: Product`, price and review aggregate. Google parses the block and may display a price and star rating beside the result in the SERP.

Sources

• Google Search Central — Introduction to structured data markup
• schema.org — Getting started with schema.org using JSON-LD

Related terms

• Schema Markup
  Structured data added to a page that describes its content to search engines in a machine-readable format.
• Rich Results
  Search results enhanced with visual or interactive elements — review stars, prices, FAQs, recipe images — generated from a page's structured data.
• Open Graph
  A protocol of meta tags (og:title, og:image, og:description, og:url) that lets a web page describe how it should appear when shared on social platforms.
• Meta Description
  A short HTML attribute summarising a page, often used by search engines as the snippet shown beneath a result's title.

Where QueryCatch uses this

• Schema Markup Generator
• Article Schema