Adding schema markup and structured data to your website is a great way to help search engines accurately understand the content on your site. However, adding it is only half of the job – the other half is ensuring it works correctly.
It can be easy to implement schema markup on your site, but see no errors in your CMS and assume everything’s fine. Sometimes though, that’s not the case. Even small mistakes like typos or changes such as site updates can affect your structured data without you noticing.
By regularly testing and monitoring your structured data, you can ensure search engines continue to parse and understand your content as intended, assisting in your search visibility and limiting misinformation.
Not sure how to test? At Wildcat Digital, we’ve got you covered.
Why Testing Structured Data Matters
Though it is not a Google ranking factor, structured data helps search engines, and in turn, LLMs, accurately understand the content on your page.
When it’s valid, your markup can help define information on your business, products, articles, events, or FAQs. It also makes your pages eligible for rich results. However, when it’s not valid, it does absolutely nothing.
Regular testing helps you:
- Ensure your markup follows Google’s guidelines.
- Find errors before search engines do.
- Identify missing required properties.
- Improve eligibility for rich results.
- Ensure your structured data remains accurate
Remember, schema markup does not guarantee rich results, as this relies on other SEO criteria; however, having no schema markup makes your site ineligible.
New to schema, or need a refresher? Take a look at our guide: What Is Schema In SEO?
When Should You Test Structured Data?
Testing should always occur after implementation, but it shouldn’t be limited to this. Instead, it should become part of your normal website maintenance process.
You should test schema:
- After adding new or editing schema markup
- After redesigning templates
- Following CMS updates
- When launching new page types
- Before and after site migration
- If Google Search Console reports new issues
- When existing rich results suddenly disappear
Testing isn’t a difficult task, as there are plenty of free online tools to use.
How To Test Structured Data
You can make testing your structured data simple by following a consistent process each time. Rather than relying on a single tool, you should use a combination of reliable testing tools alongside ongoing Google Search Console (GSC) monitoring.
1. Add Your Structured Data
This applies if you’re adding or changing schema before a test. Ensure the information added accurately represents the information on the page. In addition, you should never mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page, as per Google’s General Structured Data Guidelines.
Take care to ensure you’re only adding the most appropriate schema in the right places. For example, LocalBusiness schema does not need to be added on every page.
2. Test The Page
Once the schema markup is in place, test the page through a number of tools. We’ll go into our top tool recommendations in the next section. Google’s Rich Results Test is a good place to start, as it can detect your structured data and whether your page would be eligible for rich results.
As you test the page through different tools, make a note of any errors that appear.
3. Fix Any Issues
If there are no issues – great! Move on to step 4.
If the testing tools have identified errors, try to fix them. Errors usually mean required information is missing, or the markup contains formatting problems that prevent search engines from reading it correctly or at all.
You might see both warnings and errors. Errors need immediate fixes; warnings highlight areas for improvement. If you can, try to work on both.
4. Publish And Monitor
Once the page is live, keep monitoring it on Google Search Console. The Enhancements tab is a great way to see an overview of the status of your data, and whether any errors have occurred since the latest upload.
Common Structured Data Errors
There are a lot of different things that can cause structured data errors. Some might be obvious, but some may need a deeper level of understanding.
| Error | Displays As | What It Means |
| Missing Required Field | Missing field “PROPERTY” eg. Missing field “Organization” | A field has not been entered that is required for the schema type. |
| Invalid Syntax | Parsing error: Missing ‘,’ or ‘}’ | This generally relates to a formatting error – frequently missing commas, quotation marks or curly brackets. |
| Incorrect Schema Type | Invalid object type for field “offers” | The wrong schema type has been selected for the page. For example, an FAQ page should not feature ‘offers’ schema. |
| Duplicated Schema Markup | Multiple Product schema items detected for the same page | Schema markup has been added twice, often due to built-in plugins adding it automatically. |
| Invalid Date Format | Invalid object type for field “PROPERTY” | Dates are not formatted in the way Google prefers. (YYYY-MM-DD) |
| Unknown Property | The property “opeinngHours” is not recognised | There is either a typo in the property, or it is a property not recognised by Schema.org. In the example here, we can see “openingHours” was misspelt. |
Structured Data Testing Tools
There are plenty of different tools to use to test your structured data. But which ones are the most useful and reliable? At Wildcat, we commonly use:
Google’s Rich Results Test
The Rich Results Test is the most important tool for many website owners because it checks whether your page is eligible for Google’s supported rich results.
It’s simple to use too. All you need to do is enter a live URL or a code snippet. The tool will then:
- Detect structured data
- Show which rich result types will be recognised by Google
- Display the structured data Google can read
- Identify errors preventing eligibility for rich results
- Highlight warnings
It’s important to remember that Rich Results Test focuses on Google’s supported schema and rich results, rather than validating every Schema.org property.
Schema.org Validator
The validator from Schema.org checks whether your structured data follows the official schema vocabulary. It validates the schema itself rather than focusing on whether Google supports it as a rich result.
As with the previous tool, you can enter either a live URL or a code snippet.
This is ideal for:
- Testing custom schema
- Viewing what schema is already present
- Validating complex entity markup
- Checking relationships between entities
For example, you might have perfectly valid Schema.org markup that Google doesn’t currently use for rich results. The Schema Validator will still confirm it’s technically correct.
Google Search Console – Enhancements
With the Enhancements tab on Google Search Console, you can view the status of the structured data on your site as a whole, rather than page-by-page. The options under the Enhancements tab depend on your website and the structured data present.
You might see tabs for:
- Breadcrumbs
- Events
- FAQ
- How-to
- Job Postings
- Logos
- Review Snippets
You can view flagged pages and quickly see errors highlighted, making it easier to fix. As well as errors, GSC will flag warnings, or ‘non-critical issues’. These warnings identify optional areas for improvement, but do not affect the schema being valid.
Wildcat Digital’s Structured Data Testing Checklist
Following the same consistent, comprehensive process when checking structured data helps maintain consistency throughout the website, and keeps you abreast of any errors or changes.
| Task | Completed |
| Test the page using Google’s Rich Results Test | |
| Validate the markup using the Schema Validator | |
| Fix all errors | |
| Review warnings where appropriate | |
| Check schema matches visible page content | |
| Ensure required properties are completed | |
| Confirm Google Console reports no new issues |
Why Continue To Monitor Structured Data?
Even if your structured data is showing as completely error-free when you first implement it, it can stop working without you realising. For example, updates to changes in the services, prices, or opening times can mean it quietly fails.
It might not be until you start seeing a negative impact on your SEO metrics that you notice you’ve lost rich results or have invalid schema. Because these changes don’t usually affect how the page looks, they’re easy to miss unless you’re regularly checking Search Console or testing key templates.
Testing Is Only The Beginning
Adding structured data to your website is an important first step, but its value depends on keeping it accurate over time. Search engines rely on structured data to better understand your content, and even small errors can affect your eligibility for rich results or the way your pages are interpreted.
By making schema testing part of your regular SEO workflow, you can spot issues early, maintain high-quality markup and ensure your structured data continues to support your wider search strategy.
Whether you’re managing a handful of pages or a large ecommerce website, a few minutes spent testing today can save hours of troubleshooting in the future and help your content perform at its best in search.
