Match schema to page intent. Use Product and Offer schema on product pages, Article or BlogPosting on posts, LocalBusiness for storefronts, BreadcrumbList for navigation, Review and AggregateRating for social proof, HowTo for tutorials, and Organization on your homepage. Prioritize markup that clarifies entities for AI answer engines, not just rich-result eligibility.
FAQ schema became the default because it was easy, but Google restricted FAQ rich results to government and health sites in August 2023. For everyone else, FAQ markup no longer earns visible snippets. That does not make structured data less important; it means you should spend that effort on schema types that still trigger results or feed answer engines cleaner data.
If you sell anything, Product schema is your highest-value markup. On Shopify or WooCommerce, ensure each product page emits Product with nested Offer (price, priceCurrency, availability) and AggregateRating. This powers price, stock, and star ratings in Google Shopping and organic results, and gives ChatGPT and Perplexity structured facts to quote. Most Shopify themes ship partial Product schema, so audit it rather than assume it is complete.
For blog posts and guides, use Article or BlogPosting with author, datePublished, and dateModified. This helps search and AI engines attribute expertise to a named person, which matters more as answer engines weigh source authority. Pair it with a real author bio page and sameAs links to that author's LinkedIn or profile so the entity connects.
Physical businesses should run LocalBusiness (or a specific subtype like Restaurant or Store) with address, geo coordinates, openingHours, and telephone. This feeds Google's local pack and Maps, and answer engines pull it when someone asks 'plumbers near me' style questions. Keep it identical to your Google Business Profile to avoid conflicting signals.
The quiet workhorses for AEO are Organization, BreadcrumbList, and WebSite schema. Organization with logo, sameAs, and contactPoint tells engines who you are as an entity, which is the foundation of getting cited by name. BreadcrumbList clarifies site structure and shows in results. These run once, sitewide, and disproportionately help AI understand your brand.
Use the specialized types only where they fit: HowTo for step-by-step tutorials, Recipe for food content, Event for dated listings, VideoObject when you host video, and Review when you publish editorial reviews of other products. Do not force them. Marking up content the schema does not describe is a spam signal and can trigger manual actions.
Implement everything as JSON-LD in the page head, Google's preferred format, and validate with the Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator before shipping. Only mark up content that is actually visible on the page, keep dates and prices in sync with what users see, and re-check after any theme or template change, since updates silently break markup more often than you would expect.
Start with the schema tied to how you make money: Product for ecommerce, LocalBusiness for storefronts, Article plus Organization for content sites. Add BreadcrumbList and WebSite sitewide. Skip FAQ unless you are in an eligible sector. This gives you both the remaining rich results and the clean entity data that AI answer engines increasingly reward with citations.
Frequently asked
Is FAQ schema still worth adding?
For most sites, no. Google limited FAQ rich results to government and health domains in 2023, so it no longer earns snippets for typical businesses. Spend that effort on Product, Article, or Organization schema instead.
What schema matters most for AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity?
Organization, Product, and Article schema, because they give clean, attributable entity and fact data. sameAs links and a named author strengthen how confidently an engine can cite you.
Should I use JSON-LD or microdata?
Use JSON-LD. It is Google's recommended format, keeps markup separate from your HTML, and is far easier to maintain and validate than inline microdata.
How do I check my structured data is working?
Run each page through Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator. Only mark up content visible on the page, and re-test after any theme or template update.
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