Schema · Not a rich result
WebSite schema: required fields and common mistakes
Marks the site itself, usually on the homepage.
Required properties
- name
- url
Worth adding
- potentialAction for a sitelinks search box, publisher
These are hints, not blockers. Our validator marks them non-critical for exactly that reason: a missing optional field does not make the item invalid, and treating it as an error would make every report noisy and therefore ignorable.
Common mistakes
- Putting WebSite on every page. It describes the site, so it belongs on the homepage.
- A potentialAction search target that does not actually work when a reader uses it.
What markup cannot do
Structured data describes the page; it does not make the page true. Google also requires the visible content to match, and it decides eligibility on its own published requirements — which change without notice. A valid block that matches the page is the whole of what you control.
Test it on a real URL with the free schema validator — no account, and it reports eligible, ineligible, or not applicable without inventing a score.
Other schema types
- Product — Marks a page as a product, with its price and availability.
- Article — Marks a page as a news or blog article. Covers BlogPosting and NewsArticle too.
- LocalBusiness — Marks a page as a physical business, with an address and opening hours.
- Organization — Marks a page as representing an organisation rather than a person.
- BreadcrumbList — Marks a page as a position in a hierarchy, for the breadcrumb in a result.
- Person — Marks a page as being about, or written by, a person.
- FAQPage — Marked a question-and-answer page. Google stopped showing these as a rich result.
- HowTo — Marked a set of steps. Google stopped showing these as a rich result.