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I am building a WordPress website just now and have downloaded a few schema plug ins but just can't find one that is just right. I am a complete beginner when it comes to schema, but what I want to find the answer to is this:

Can you build schema for web pages that are not articles, news etc etc?

Say my page is called 'places to eat in Glasgow.' It has a map where users can search for a coffee shop, restaurant or hotel, which then will go to the business pages.

If I use the article schema it asks for author, date etc, so I can't use that. What can I use?

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2 Answers 2

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You can use schema.org/FoodEstablishment, of which there are a few specific types including Restaurant, which the example below uses.

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Restaurant">
  <span itemprop="name">GreatFood</span>
  <div itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating">
    <span itemprop="ratingValue">4</span> stars -
    based on <span itemprop="reviewCount">250</span> reviews
  </div>
  <div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
    <span itemprop="streetAddress">1901 Lemur Ave</span>
    <span itemprop="addressLocality">Sunnyvale</span>,
    <span itemprop="addressRegion">CA</span> <span itemprop="postalCode">94086</span>
  </div>
  <span itemprop="telephone">(408) 714-1489</span>
  <a itemprop="url" href="http://www.dishdash.com">www.greatfood.com</a>
  Hours:
  <meta itemprop="openingHours" content="Mo-Sa 11:00-14:30">Mon-Sat 11am - 2:30pm
  <meta itemprop="openingHours" content="Mo-Th 17:00-21:30">Mon-Thu 5pm - 9:30pm
  <meta itemprop="openingHours" content="Fr-Sa 17:00-22:00">Fri-Sat 5pm - 10:00pm
  Categories:
  <span itemprop="servesCuisine">
    Middle Eastern
  </span>,
  <span itemprop="servesCuisine">
    Mediterranean
  </span>
  Price Range: <span itemprop="priceRange">$$</span>
  Takes Reservations: Yes
</div>
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  • That sounds like it might be good for a page with a single restaurant (like the business page mentioned in the question), but would it apply to a page with a list of restaurants? Feb 17, 2016 at 19:11
  • @Stephen Why wouldn't it? I've never heard of anything against using a schema type multiple times on a page?
    – grg
    Feb 17, 2016 at 19:54
  • A list of restaurants is not likely to have much detail about each one. It might just have the restaurant name and a link to the business page for the restaurant. I'm not sure it would be useful to put very incomplete schema on one page and then the full version on the linked page. Feb 17, 2016 at 20:01
  • Of course, I guess you would need to know what the schema is going to be used for anyway. Other than the limited use case of search engines being able to machine read data to give your site special display in the search results, there usually isn't much point. Feb 17, 2016 at 20:02
  • @Stephen The schema doesn't define required properties, only the uses of the schema do this, such as rich snippets or Wikidata. Thus 'full schema' vs 'incomplete schema' is undefined nomenclature when not referring to a structured data output, and there's nothing against using Resturant just to mark up an itemprop="name" for each resturant? This question isn't discussing the use cases or application for the Resturant schema, just it's implementation.
    – grg
    Feb 17, 2016 at 21:10
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You seem to confuse Schema.org markup with things search engines might do with this markup (e.g., Rich Snippets in Google Search).

Schema.org never requires any properties, so you could have an Article without providing the publication date or the author. However, Google Search defines requirements for showing their Rich Snippets.

So:

  • Does Schema.org offer a type suitable for representing a restaurant? Yes, Restaurant.

  • May you use Restaurant on a page about this restaurant instead of the restaurant’s official site? Yes.

  • Will Google Search show a Rich Snippet for the Restaurant? No, they don’t offer a Rich Snippet for this purpose.

    But they have Rich Snippets for ratings and reviews, so if you provide Review and/or AggregateRating items for each Restaurant, Google Search might show a Rich Snippet for these. However, this would require that you have a page about each restaurant (with its rating/review) on your site. If you don’t have this (e.g., you only have a list/map of links to the restaurants), you won’t get a Rich Snippet in Google Search for the restaurant’s rating/review.

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