What is JSON-LD?
JSON-LD is the syntax for writing schema.org structured data as a self-contained script block, separate from the HTML a visitor actually sees.
It lives inside a script tag, usually in the page head, and describes the page's subject as a block of key-value data rather than by annotating the visible markup. Nothing about it is rendered, so it can be added or corrected without touching the design.
That separation is why Google recommends it over microdata: a block can be fixed without a designer touching a template, and it can't drift out of sync with the visible text the way an inline attribute can when someone edits a heading and forgets the data attached to it. The dependency runs the other way for crawlers that don't render JavaScript. If the JSON-LD block is injected client-side rather than present in the initial HTML, it is exactly as invisible to those crawlers as any other client-rendered content.
Related
- schema.orgschema.org is the shared vocabulary of types and properties, jointly maintained by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex, that structured data markup uses to describe things on a page.
- MicrodataMicrodata is the older way of writing schema.org markup, using itemscope and itemprop attributes added directly to the HTML tags a visitor sees, rather than a separate data block.
- Server-side renderingServer-side rendering means the HTML arrives complete from the server. It matters because most AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript, so content injected in the browser is invisible to them.
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