What is Structured Data?

Do you know what structured data is?

Watch the video below as Google’s Matt Cutts explains Google’s Knowledge Graph and Structured Data vision:

 

From Webopedia.com, we get the following definition of structured data:

“Data that resides in a fixed field within a record or file is called structured data. This includes data contained in relational databases and spreadsheets.”

“Structured data first depends on creating a data model – a model of the types of business data that will be recorded and how they will be stored, processed and accessed. This includes defining what fields of data will be stored and how that data will be stored: data type (numeric, currency, alphabetic, name, date, address) and any restrictions on the data input (number of characters; restricted to certain terms such as Mr., Ms. or Dr.; M or F).”

“Structured data has the advantage of being easily entered, stored, queried and analyzed. At one time, because of the high cost and performance limitations of storage, memory and processing, relational databases and spreadsheets using structured data were the only way to effectively manage data. Anything that couldn’t fit into a tightly organized structure would have to be stored on paper in a filing cabinet.” Source – Webopedia.com

Google Webmaster tools tell us:

“If Google understands the content on your pages, we can create rich snippets—detailed information intended to help users with specific queries. For example, the snippet for a restaurant might show the average review and price range.” Source – Google Webmaster Tools.

Why do you think using structured data is a good idea?

The general idea behind structured data is for your data to be organized in a way that is easily recognized by search engines. If you don’t use structured data, then you are leaving it up to search engines not only to parse complex information but to try to comprehend it.

You are actually saying that a math problem (algorithm) can do a good job of determining what your website is about without actually telling the the search engines what your website is about. When you do this, there is a good change that the search engine bot will miss some important information about your website.

Search engines are actually pretty efficient at determining what your website is about. However, using structured data gives you the opportunity of telling the math problem that your website contains specific information about a specific subject.

And this is exactly the point of knowing what structured data is and using it.

Well, now you know what structured data is. Do you want to know how to use structured data? More in my next post.

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