XXL Guide: JSON-LD

Structured data is becoming ever more important for search engine optimization. Search engines such as Google can read this data and use it to enrich search engine results (rich snippets) or for special results, such as the Knowledge Graph.

To take advantage of this, you should tag your content with mark-ups. JSON-LD offers an opportunity to mark structured data simply. In this tutorial, you will learn what you need to optimally prepare your web content for Google & Co.

What is the Difference between JSON and JSON-LD?

The abbreviation JSON stands for "JavaScript Object Notation." This is a special data format derived from JavaScript that allows the exchange of text-based information. This format can be easily read and processed by people and machines. As a variant of JavaScript, JSON is itself a JavaScript and should be stored in the source code.

A great advantage of JSON is that the data format can be used across platforms. Today, it is used mainly for the transfer and storage of structured data. Likewise, web apps or web uses with JSON objects can be used.

JSON is characterized by its syntax, which consists primarily of name-value pairs. An object is marked with curly brackets. Within the object, further individual properties, i.e. qualities, can be defined. For each property there is a value separated by a colon. That is why JSON has become increasingly popular over the past few years - because its structure is simpler than XML, for example.

JSON-LD, by contrast, stands for "JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data." With JSON-LD, structured data can be incorporated in one website. Since 2010, JSON-LD has had a W3C standard notation. The specification of the markup language was developed by Manu Sporny.

In contrast to other markup methods for structured data such as microformats, RDFa and microdata are not directly designated in the source code, but rather the meta tasks are separated from the actual website content via a script.

JSON-LD rests on JSON notation and was expanded to "types" and "properties" in order to transfer data or linked data.

JSON-LD can be read by common search engines, and Google Gmail can process JSON-LD data.

"Linked Data"

When you implement JSON into a website, this data can be arranged simply within the site, because the supplier is always this website. If, however, search engines should read various data marked with JSON, this can lead to improper interpretations and improper allocations.

The expansion of JSON to "Linked Data" (LD) ensures that the structured data can be assigned to a website. For this, the element "type" is added. Via this element, for example, the URI is connected with the data set. Fundamentally, JSON-LD is not established with a specific vocabulary.

Targeted Use of JSON-LD

JSON-LD lists the elements of a website and structures this data. These can then be clearly assigned and read by a search engine. On the basis of these structured data, search engines can improve and better organize their search results.

Where is JSON-LD inserted in the HTML code?

Google suggests to insert JSON-LD in the area of the HTML document. Search engines can nevertheless also read the data from the segment. Moreover, there is the possibility that Google will read dynamically-generated JSON-LD tags via the Google Tag Manager. How this works is described in detail in this article.

Why should I use JSON-LD?

JSON-LD is a very simple opportunity to generate structured data. This data with JSON-LD can be easily stored in the area