Why JSON-LD beats microdata
JSON-LD is now the only structured data format Google actively recommends. It's easier to maintain (it lives in a single script tag), easier to validate, and easier to generate dynamically. If you're still shipping microdata in 2026, you're making your life harder for no benefit.
Organization and WebSite schemas
Every site should ship Organization and WebSite schemas in the root layout. They power the brand knowledge panel, the sitelinks search box, and the entity recognition Google uses to associate your site with your brand. This is the lowest-effort, highest-leverage schema work you can do.
Product and Offer for commerce
For e-commerce, Product schema with nested Offer and AggregateRating is non-negotiable. It unlocks price annotations, stock status, and star ratings directly in search results. Sites that ship it correctly see 30-50% higher CTR on commercial queries.
Article and BreadcrumbList for content
For blogs and editorial sites, Article schema with author, datePublished and image fields enables the rich top stories carousel. BreadcrumbList shows the site hierarchy under the result, which improves CTR by 8-15% in our tests.
FAQPage: handle with care
FAQ rich results were heavily restricted in 2023 — Google now only shows them for authoritative sites in health, government and select editorial niches. Don't waste time on FAQ schema unless you're already a topical authority. The juice isn't worth the squeeze for most sites.
Validation and monitoring
Ship schema validation in CI. The Google Rich Results Test API is free and rate-limited generously. Catching a broken schema in a pull request saves you from a week of mysteriously vanishing rich results in production.