Organization and Person Schema: Building Entity Identity

Organization Markup

Where it goes. Google: “We recommend placing this information on your home page, or a single page that describes your organization, for example the about us page. You don’t need to include it on every page of your site.”

What’s required. “There are no required properties; instead, we recommend adding as many properties that are relevant to your organization.” Useful ones:

Logo rules, from the same documentation: “The image must be 112x112px, at minimum”, the URL “must be crawlable and indexable”, and it should look right “on a purely white background”.

Type. “We recommend using the most specific schema.org subtype of Organization that matches your organization.” Google’s examples include OnlineStore rather than OnlineBusiness for an e-commerce site; a business with a physical location uses a LocalBusiness subtype, covered in LocalBusiness schema.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization",
  "name": "Example Analytics",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "logo": "https://www.example.com/images/logo-512.png",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/example-analytics",
    "https://www.youtube.com/@example-analytics"
  ],
  "contactPoint": {
    "@type": "ContactPoint",
    "telephone": "+1-555-010-0199",
    "contactType": "customer service"
  }
}
</script>

The profile URLs above are placeholders; replace them with your real official profiles, and list only profiles you control or that officially represent the organization.

Person Markup

Google uses Person markup in two places documented elsewhere on this site:

• As the author of an article, inside Article markup, with name and url; see Article schema.
• As the main entity of a profile page, such as an author or team page, inside ProfilePage markup; see author pages and bylines.

Useful Person properties include name, url, image, jobTitle, worksFor, sameAs for profiles on other sites, and honorificPrefix or honorificSuffix for titles and credentials. Keep the name identical everywhere the person appears.

Connecting Entities With @id

Describe each entity once, give it an @id (a URL plus a fragment works well), and refer to it elsewhere instead of repeating it.

On the author’s profile page:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "ProfilePage",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "@id": "https://www.example.com/authors/example-author/#person",
    "name": "Example Author",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/authors/example-author/",
    "worksFor": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization" }
  }
}
</script>

On each of that author’s articles:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "How to Read a Property Tax Bill",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "@id": "https://www.example.com/authors/example-author/#person",
    "name": "Example Author",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/authors/example-author/"
  },
  "publisher": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization" }
}
</script>

Keeping name and url alongside the @id in the article follows Google’s recommendation to give authors a type and URL, and keeps the author identifiable on that page by itself.

Knowledge Panels

Google decides when to show a knowledge panel. Organization markup can influence which logo Google shows there, by Google’s own description, but no markup guarantees that a panel exists. Keeping the same facts on the site, in your Business Profile if you have one, and in your official profiles leaves less for Google to reconcile.

Organization Subtypes

Some of schema.org’s Organization subtypes:

Use the most specific subtype that fits, and the general Organization type when none does.

Maintenance

• Update markup when facts change: a new logo, address, phone number or official profile.
• Remove dead or abandoned profiles from sameAs.
• Remove people who’ve left from team markup, and keep their past articles attributed accurately.
• Test with the Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator after template changes; see schema markup testing and validation tools.

Entity Markup Mistakes

• A logo smaller than 112×112 px, or one that disappears on white.
• sameAs links to profiles that aren’t yours or no longer exist.
• Copying example profile URLs or names that point to real people.
• Different names for the organization in markup, on the site and in your profiles.
• Keyword-stuffed descriptions or inflated facts such as employee counts.
• Repeating full Organization markup on every page when one page and @id references do the job.

Before adding a URL to sameAs, open it: list it only if the organization or person controls that profile or it officially represents them, and take it out when the account is deleted or abandoned.