--- title: What is Schema (and why it matters for AI) description: Schema is the structured-data code that helps search engines and AI understand your content. What it is, types, formats and why it is critical for AEO. --- [Insights](https://www.smartlinks.pt/en/insights) # [What is Schema (and why it matters for AI)](https://www.smartlinks.pt/en/insights/seo-ai-search/what-is-schema) Written by [Rui Martins](https://www.smartlinks.pt/en/insights/author/rui-martins) | Jan 3, 2024, 11:03:08 AM Schema Markup is structured-data code you add to a site so search engines, and now AI models, understand the content better. It comes from a collaboration between Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex, and it translates your content into a language machines read without ambiguity. For years, Schema mostly powered rich snippets in the SERP. Today it plays a bigger role: helping AI systems identify entities and cite your brand with confidence. It is one of the core pieces of [AEO](https://www.smartlinks.pt/en/insights/seo-ai-search/seo-vs-aeo?hsLang=en). ## The most useful markup types in B2B - **Organization:** logo, description, contacts, social profiles, your company as an entity. - **Article:** editorial content with title, author, date and images, which reinforces E-E-A-T. - **Person:** author profiles, important for authority and the Knowledge Graph. - **FAQ and HowTo:** questions and steps, the format AI likes to extract for answers. - **VideoObject:** video with a transcript, highly citable. - **Review and Product:** relevant for anyone with rated offers or a catalog. The point is not to mark up everything, it is to mark up what describes your entity and your content consistently. ## The three formats - **JSON-LD:** a separate code block in the `` or body. It is Google's recommended format and the easiest to maintain. - **Microdata:** attributes (`itemscope`, `itemtype`, `itemprop`) inside the HTML. - **RDFa:** an HTML extension that embeds semantics in the tags. In practice, for most sites, JSON-LD is the right choice: it stays isolated from the HTML and is simple to generate and audit. ## Why this weighs more now AI models build answers from entities and the relationships between them. A site with consistent Schema (organization, authors, articles, FAQ) gives the model a clear basis to associate your brand with a topic and to cite it. Without structured data, the model has to guess, and it guesses in your favor less often. A well-used `sameAs` and `@id` help link your entity to its recognized sources. ## How SmartLinks works on this Structured data is not a plugin you switch on and forget. It needs coherence across the organization, authors, articles and offer pages, and maintenance when the site changes. It is part of our [SEO & AI Search](https://smartlinks.pt/en/system/seo-ai-search/?hsLang=en) work: building the entity layer that makes AI understand and cite your brand. If your site lacks a coherent structured-data layer, you are making it harder for the very systems that should be citing you. [See what is missing in the Diagnosis](https://smartlinks.pt/en/diagnosis/?hsLang=en). [View full post](https://www.smartlinks.pt/en/insights/seo-ai-search/what-is-schema) ```json { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Rui Martins" }, "dateModified" : "2026-08-19T14:13:32.089Z", "datePublished" : "2024-01-03T11:03:08Z", "headline" : "What is Schema (and why it matters for AI)", "image" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 642, "url" : "https://8664269.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/8664269/insights/pt-o-que-e-o-schema.webp", "width" : 1140 }, "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.smartlinks.pt/en/insights/seo-ai-search/what-is-schema", "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 60, "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png", "width" : 60 }, "name" : "Insights" } } ```