Term

Schema.org / JSON-LD (Structured Data)

In short

A shared vocabulary (Schema.org) that labels the information on a page as "this is a business, this is its name, this is its phone number", and the most common way of writing it into the page (JSON-LD). It lets the machine read instead of guess.

Schema.org is a vocabulary founded jointly by the search engines in 2011: types such as LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage and Product, and the fields of each type (name, address, phone, price, rating). Information written in this vocabulary is called structured data. JSON-LD is the standard way of placing that data in the page's <head> as a block of code invisible to visitors.

Why it matters for AI

A language model understands text by inference; it usually knows that the line "Monday–Friday 09:00–18:00" is opening hours, but sometimes it doesn't. Written as openingHours in JSON-LD, there's nothing to guess. In answers that use web search (Perplexity, ChatGPT search, Gemini), the structured data on the retrieved page directly affects the answer's accuracy.

Types for businesses

Organization / LocalBusiness — on the homepage, once.
Service — on every service page.
FAQPage — on the frequently asked questions page.
Product — if products are sold.
BreadcrumbList — page hierarchy.

Testing

Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator. The two most common errors: invalid JSON, and a value that contradicts what's visible on the page. The Schema.org generator at protan.ai produces LocalBusiness, Service and FAQ blocks from a form.