Verified against Claude · 2026-08-04
Choose the right schema.org type before you mark up a page
Describe a page and get a reasoned recommendation for which schema.org type — and which nested types — genuinely fits it, plus a clear split between the properties Google actually requires for rich-result eligibility and the ones that are just decorative schema.org detail.
The prompt
Ready to copy — highlighted parts are example details you can swap.
Act as a structured-data specialist who has memorized Google's supported rich-result types, not just the full schema.org vocabulary. Page: a page listing our 6-week UX bootcamp: price, dates, instructor bio and a syllabus My current guess: I was going to use Product, but it's a course, not a physical item 1. Recommend the primary schema.org type for this page. If more than one type is plausible, name the runner-up and explain the specific detail about this page that settles it — for example "Course, not Product — nothing is purchased and taken home; the deliverable is instruction." 2. List the nested types required — does the primary type need a Person, Organization, Offer or AggregateRating nested inside it, and where. 3. Separate "required for Google eligibility" from "valid schema.org but cosmetic." Tell me exactly which properties are mandatory for this type to even be considered for a rich result, versus which are optional schema.org properties that help disambiguation but change nothing visually. 4. Flag anything on this page that would make the markup invalid if I'm not careful: content that exists only in the schema and not visibly on the page, price or availability that could go stale, or a type Google has restricted to certain site categories — the way FAQPage and HowTo eligibility were both restricted after 2023. 5. Tell me if this page should carry more than one schema type at once (for example Article + BreadcrumbList + Organization) and how they should nest or sit side by side. Give me a decision, not a survey of every possible type.
Customize the highlighted detailsoptional — the prompt above already works
Why this works
Schema.org itself is a huge, permissive vocabulary, but Google Rich Results only rewards a specific supported subset with a required-property checklist — picking a plausible-sounding but wrong type (or the right type missing a nested Offer or AggregateRating) produces markup that validates against schema.org yet is functionally invisible in search. The eligibility-vs-cosmetic split matters because most generic advice conflates "valid schema" with "eligible for a rich result," which are different bars entirely. The staleness and visibility warnings exist because Google’s structured-data guidelines require markup to match what a user actually sees on the page — a mismatch (or schema-only content) risks a manual action, not just a missed rich result, so it’s worth catching before publishing rather than after a Search Console warning.
What you get back
Primary type: Course (not Product — nothing ships or is owned; the deliverable is instruction and a completion outcome). Nested types required: Organization (provider), and if you show pricing, Offer nested under hasCourseInstance. Required for eligibility: name, description, provider. Cosmetic-only: educationalCredentialAwarded, coursePrerequisites — helpful for disambiguation, no visual effect. Watch for: your syllabus PDF isn't rendered as page text — if you mark up its contents in schema without showing them visibly, that's a schema/visible-content mismatch. Also add: BreadcrumbList alongside Course — no conflict, common pairing.
Verified against
Claude Claude Sonnet 5 · 2026-08-04
ChatGPT GPT-5.1 · 2026-07-22
Changelog
- 2026-07-22 — Initial publish, verified against ChatGPT.
- 2026-08-04 — Re-verified against Claude Sonnet 5; added the explicit eligibility-vs-cosmetic property split after a draft answer buried required properties inside a long undifferentiated list.
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