Content & Structured Data
Structured data is one of the most over-promised GEO tactics. Google says no special markup is needed for its AI features. Markup still matters for rich results, under strict rules about matching visible content. Entries here keep those two things apart.
Start here
Section titled “Start here”- Structured data and AI search — what Google says about markup for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- Article structured data — the three supported types and recommended properties.
- Link best practices — crawlable links and anchor text.
- Scaled content abuse — the spam policy behind most “page per query” tactics.
- Title links and snippets — how Google picks the title and snippet it shows.
- Claim: content must be chunked and rewritten for AI search — why Google says you can ignore “chunking”.
- Organization structured data — help Google identify the organization behind a site.
- Image SEO — images Google can find and understand.
- Breadcrumb structured data — BreadcrumbList rules and which trail to mark up.
- Site reputation and expired domain abuse — borrowed ranking signals, and the EEA’s separate enforcement.
- Video SEO — watch pages, thumbnails and what Google needs to index a video.
- Favicons in Google Search — the icon next to your site in results, and the formats Google supports.
- Google spam policies — the policies GEO tactics run into, including cloaking for AI crawlers.
Entries in this topic
Reference
- Article structured dataGoogle supports Article, NewsArticle and BlogPosting markup for article pages. No properties are required; author, dates, headline and images are recommended. Google says the markup can help show better titles, images and dates, and that Top stories eligibility needs no markup.
- Breadcrumb structured dataA BreadcrumbList shows where a page sits in a site's hierarchy. It needs at least two ListItems with position and name, plus item on every crumb except the last. Google recommends a typical user path over mirroring the URL, and the display appears on desktop.
- Favicons in Google SearchGoogle shows one favicon per hostname, read from a link element on the home page, so subdirectory home pages can't have their own. The file must be square, at least 8×8px, in BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM or TIFF, stable and crawlable. Even then, display isn't guaranteed.
- Google spam policiesGoogle defines spam as deceiving users or manipulating Search, including generative AI responses; violations can lower rankings or remove a site. The policies GEO tactics most often hit are cloaking, hidden text, keyword stuffing, doorway pages, link spam, scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse. Accordions, tabs and screen-reader text are not hidden-text abuse.
- Image SEOGoogle finds images in the src attribute of img elements and does not index CSS images. Alt text should be descriptive and in context, not stuffed with keywords; Google reads it alongside computer vision and the page content. High-quality images and video still matter for Google's AI features.
- Link best practicesGoogle can generally only crawl links that are anchor elements with an href; JavaScript-only links may not be followed. Anchor text should be descriptive, concise and relevant. Every page you care about should be linked from at least one other page on your site, and there is no ideal number of links per page.
- Organization structured dataOrganization markup on a home page can help Google understand an organization's administrative details and disambiguate it in search results. Some properties can influence the logo shown and the knowledge panel, and none are required. Google recommends the home page or one "about" page, using the most specific Organization subtype.
- Scaled content abuseScaled content abuse is Google's spam policy against generating many pages mainly to manipulate rankings, however the content is made. Examples include mass-generated AI pages without added value and scraped or auto-translated content. Google applies it to pages made for AI search too, such as one page per fan-out query.
- Site reputation and expired domain abuseThe site reputation policy covers third-party content placed on a host site mainly to exploit its ranking signals; third-party content alone is fine. Since August 2026, such pages in the EEA may be ranked separately instead of getting a manual action. Expired domain abuse repurposes an expired domain for low-value content.
- Structured data and AI searchGoogle says no special schema.org markup is needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Structured data remains useful for rich results, where Google recommends JSON-LD, requires the markup to describe content visible on the page, and does not guarantee display. Whether markup changes AI citations is unestablished.
- Title links and snippetsGoogle generates title links and snippets automatically and can't change them by hand for individual sites. Title links draw on the title element, visible title, headings, og:title and other prominent text. Snippets come mainly from page content, sometimes the meta description; neither has a length limit, but both are truncated.
- Video SEOA video can be indexed only if its watch page is indexed and performing well in Search. The video must be embedded, visible and have a valid thumbnail at a stable URL. Video results and key moments need a watch page built around one video, loaded without URL fragments or user interaction.