• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Benefits/drawbacks to different Schema markup languages (ie. JSON-LD, Microdata, RDFa)

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Benefits/drawbacks to different Schema markup languages (ie. JSON-LD, Microdata, RDFa)

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        2
        5
        4717
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Brian_Dowd
          Brian_Dowd last edited by

          Just a question (or questions) I have wondered about. What's the difference, besides the actual encoding, between the three? Why have three? Why not just the one? Seems to me that Microdata is the easiest, but maybe I am wrong. Is there a reason to use one versus another? I have not found anything explaining this on schema.org - I suppose this is just a discussion versus getting one right or wrong answer. I am just curious of the opinions of people in the SEO MOZ community. Unless of course there is one answer. I'll take that too.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Brian_Dowd
            Brian_Dowd last edited by

            Great, Peter. Thanks for the answers. I now understand the difference. Much appreciated.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Mobilio
              Mobilio @Brian_Dowd last edited by

              That's right. JSON-LD doesn't require change of HTML compared with Microdata and RDFa. And this is one of answers why JSON-LD is beautiful. Second is because you can make changes in JSON-LD without touching HTML. Like adding new fields, parameters, etc.

              About placing. I think that this can be just on home page. Placing in each page is pure rich snippet spam.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
              • Brian_Dowd
                Brian_Dowd last edited by

                Hi Peter,

                Thanks for the answer. So, as I understand it, and keep in mind this is coming from someone that is not very code-savvy, with JSON-LD, one could put the script anywhere in the HTML, the header, the body, the footer, etc. and it won't show up on the actual page, but the search engine will be able to read it. This implies that no changing or tweaking of the actual HTML is necessary, no messing around with 's or

                's like you would with Microdata or RDFa, correct?

                A follow up question, if I may, how would you implement something like a "local business" schema with JSON, would you put the script on every page, in the footer perhaps? Or would you just put it on the home page? Does it matter?

                Thanks

                Mobilio 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Mobilio
                  Mobilio last edited by

                  So far we have Microdata, RDFa and JSON-LD.

                  I'll cover Microdata and RDFa in same because they're similar. So they both are addition to HTML attributes indicating what Schema.org field names correspond with what user-visible text on the page. Works perfect but need lot of developer work and designer changes. Because both backend (admin interface) and frontend (HTML) must be changed. And there are many issues that can be messed - incorrect implementation, "rich snippet spam", software bugs, etc. Look easy as 1-2-3 but in reality it's pain (PIA) for implementation and support. Example - only product implementation require in backend least 10 edit boxes if they're manual filled.

                  JSON-LD - it's relative new protocol based on Schema.org. The main benefit is that you split representation layer (HTML) from semantic layer (JSON-LD). In prev. formats - they're same and linked each other. Now they're split. This give you much more freedom than before. You can place HTML data whatever you wish and just add hidden JSON in head or in content that will add semantic marking. This is future (for now).

                  If you wish to read more about creation of JSON-LD then this article is for you:
                  http://manu.sporny.org/2014/json-ld-origins-2/

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Collegis_Education

                    Schema Markup Validator vs. Rich Results Test

                    schema structured data

                    I am working on a schema markup project. When I test the schema code in the Schema Markup Validator, everything looks fine, no errors detected. However, when I test it in the Rich Results Test, a few errors come back.
                    What is the difference between these two tests? Should I trust one over the other?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Collegis_Education
                    1
                  • NoWayAsh

                    Could I set a Cruise as an Event in Schema mark up?

                    Hi there, We are now in the process of implementing a JSON-LD mark-up solution and are building cruises as an event.  Will this work and can we get away with this without penalty? Previously they have been marking their cruises as events using the data highlighter and this has displayed correctly in the SERP. The ideal schema would be Trip but this is not supported by Google Rich Results yet, hopefully they will support this in the future. Another alternative would be product but this does not display rich-results as we would like. Event has the best result in terms of how the information is displayed. For example someone might search "Cruises to Spain" and the landing page would display the next 3 cruises that go to Spain, with dates & prices. The event location would be the cruise terminal, the offer would be the starting price and the start & end date would be the cruise duration, these are fixed dates. I am interested to hear the communities opinion and experience with this problem.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoWayAsh
                    1
                  • Bee159

                    :Pointing hreflang to a different domain

                    Hi all, Let's say I have two websites: www.mywebsite.com and www.mywebsite.de - they share a lot of content but the main categories and URLs are almost always different. Am I right in saying I can't just set the hreflang tag on every page of www.mywebsite.com to read: rel='alternate' hreflang='de' href='http://mywebsite.de' /> That just won't do anything, right? Am I also right in saying that the only way to use hreflang properly across two domains is to have a customer hreflang tag on every page that has identical content translated into German? So for this page: www.mywebsite.com/page.html my hreflang tag for the german users would be: <link < span="">rel='alternate' hreflang='de' href='http://mywebsite.de/page.html' /></link <> Thanks for your time.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee159
                    0
                  • 19958

                    Schema for a discount

                    Hi! I'm trying to implement schema for a discount and it doesn't seem to be working. Is this the correct code? NAME OF ORDER HERE are  $DISCOUNT HERE What am I missing? Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 19958
                    0
                  • COEDMediaGroup

                    301 redirect with /? in URL

                    For a Wordpress site that has the ending / in the URL with a ? after it... how can you do a 301 redirect to strip off anything after the / For example how to take this URL domain.com/article-name/?utm_source=feedburner and 301 to this URL domain.com/article-name/ Thank you for the help

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | COEDMediaGroup
                    0
                  • imoney

                    Benefits of Rich Snippets for financial products

                    Does anyone have experience of using rich snippets for non-physical products? Our website offers credit cards comparison service. Do you think that tagging each card's page with rich snippets such as credit card image, name, description and category makes sense? The idea is to make it stand out in the search results.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imoney
                    0
                  • rarbel

                    Schema.org and Testimonials

                    Does anyone know which fields and code are necessary to embed a testimonial into a page using schema.org?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rarbel
                    0
                  • James77

                    Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc

                    I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
                    /aclk   - No cd value
                    /search - No cd value
                    /url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.