Structured Data
Information organized in a consistent, machine-readable format that AI systems can parse reliably without inferring meaning from visual layout or prose.
Also known as: machine-readable data, semantic markup
Structured data is information formatted according to a defined schema so that machines can parse it reliably without requiring interpretation of natural language or visual layout. On websites, structured data most often refers to Schema.org vocabulary expressed in JSON-LD, embedded in page HTML to describe what type of content a page is, who created it, what it is about, and how it relates to other entities. Structured data is the foundation of AI-readable websites because it removes ambiguity: instead of asking an AI to infer that a block of text is an article author, structured data states it explicitly.