Structured data is about making content easier for machines to understand. Before anything else, we should check whether we have it at all.
Last week we discussed structured data from first principles and I hope it didn’t come across as some impenetrable technical layer buried in a site. Regardless, checking whether a site uses it is usually quite straightforward.
The quickest route is to use two free tools. Google’s Rich Results Test is the first. Paste in a page URL and it will show whether Google can detect structured data that may qualify for rich results. That matters because there is a difference between “this page has some markup” and “Google can actually use this markup for something visible in search”. Those are not always the same thing.
The second tool is the Schema Markup Validator. This gives a broader view. It checks for Schema.org markup on the page, whether or not that markup is tied to one of Google’s preferred rich result formats. So between the two tools, we can usually get a good idea about what is there and what is actually useful.
That distinction matters more than people sometimes think. A page may contain structured data, but not in a form Google chooses to reward with rich results. Equally, a page may have valid markup, but still not earn any enhanced presentation in search. Structured data is a strong clue.
(There is also a quick manual check if we want a rough answer without using a validator. View the page source and search for terms such as “application/ld+json”, “schema.org”, “itemtype” or “itemscope”. If those appear, there is a fair chance the page is using JSON-LD, Microdata or another form of structured data markup. It is not a perfect test, but it is often enough to confirm whether anything has been implemented at all.)
Why are we doing this? It’s because structured data is just about making content easier for machines to understand. Before we worry about whether our markup is sophisticated, it is sensible to check whether it exists at all.