Adding Structured Data to a Rails Application

Summary

When it comes to SEO, content is king. However, content is not exclusively what can be seen or read, metadata is also part of the content, and it helps us better communicate what the content is about and what entities are part of it. In this article, we will learn how to add structured data, a.k.a. schema markup, to a Rails application. Let's start by understanding what structured data is, feel free to skip to the application setup if you're already familiar with the topic. What is structured data? Schema markup, also known as structured data, is metadata that we can add to pages to help search engines understand what our content is about. We've learned about meta tags in Rails apps, which serve a similar purpose but in a different manner. In contrast to meta tags, structured data is a convened upon method to categorize content using a set of entities and their properties. This allows search engines to understand the content's context and the relationships within its entities. Structured data can tell search engines that a page is about: A product with price, availability, reviews, discounts, etc. A book with an ISBN, several pages, an abstract, etc. A recipe with ingredients, cooking time, calories, etc. A person with a name, birthdate, email, phone number, etc. However, structured data doesn't exclusively represent what a page is about, it can also represent entities that are present within a page as a part of the whole: Breadcrumbs. Frequently Asked Questions. Multimedia: audio, image or video objects. , reviews, quotations, maps, etc. A logo, an organization, among others. Using this data and its relations, search engines can better understand what our content is about and what entities are represented within it. Schema markup, developed by Google, Bing, and Yahoo in 2011, is an initiative to standardize the way structured data is defined on the internet. It helps give semantic meaning and context to entities in webpages using a common language. As of 2024, over...