What is structured data?
With structured data (simply put: specially marked-up data), website operators can provide the Google bot with additional information that enables the search engine to better categorize websites and make them more relevant for specific search queries. This allows crawlers to interpret the data more quickly, resulting in better presentation and potentially improved rankings in search engines.
Better ranking: Strictly speaking, structured data is (not yet) a direct ranking factor in Google's indexing of a website or its ranking position. However, structured data provides Google with more context to understand what your page is about, which can play a role in ranking. This can be particularly helpful for online shops, where product descriptions are often relatively short and search engine indexing can therefore be less precise.
Better presentation in search results: Structured data can enable a range of additional content in Rich Snippets (additional, small excerpts of website content displayed on search engine results pages), such as displaying customer reviews in the form of stars. This does not provide a technical advantage, but rather a visual one. The additional information helps your listings stand out in search results from those of competitors without structured data, thereby attracting more attention.
Converting unstructured data
Estimates suggest that around 80% of all data available online is unstructured. As a result, data from the internet, such as email messages, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, MP4 files, JPEGs, and HTML documents, cannot simply be stored in a database. If data from such unstructured formats is to be used, the information must first be extracted from the content and stored in a table. This is done using algorithms that scan the content of the data, such as articles from an online news portal. They identify the relevant information and compile the data into machine-readable tables.
Semi-structured data
While with unstructured data only the file type is known, and the content contains no specially marked data or fields with a defined structure, semi-structured data has a certain basic structure that allows specific information to be categorized.
Which data is structured?
The most commonly structured types of data include:
- Products / product presentations
- Reviews
- People / descriptions of people
- Recipes
- Events
However, in addition to these commonly structured types of data, there are many other types of data whose structured representation can contribute to the best possible presentation and improved ranking of a website in search engines.
Do you have any questions about this topic? Or would you like us to structure your data as well?
Our web agency will be happy to assist you!
