What is the correct way to use the CollectionPage type for a 'category' page?

Question

If I have a category page that has a list of links to the specific items, this page would be a CollectionPage with significantLinks, right?

I thought this would be the correct basic implementation:

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebPage",
  "url": "http://example.com/animals",
  "mainEntity":{
    "@type": "CollectionPage",
    "significantLinks": [
      "http://example.com/animals/dog",
      "http://example.com/animals/cat"
    ]
  }
}

But this feels like it's missing something (labels, for example). I also saw the hasPart property which seems like it should be used in a page like this, but using both hasPart and significantLinks feels very disconnected.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

You should use CollectionPage instead of WebPage, not in addition to it. CollectionPage is a more specific WebPage.

---

It seems that significantLink (for URL values) as well as hasPart (for CreativeWork values) could be used. But I think hasPart is the better choice here, because significantLink could also be used for pages that don’t belong to the category (so for consumers it’s not necessarily clear that these are category items), and hasPart would allow you to provide metadata (in case you want to display it on the category page).

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "CollectionPage",
  "hasPart": [
    {
      "@type": "ItemPage"
    },
    {
      "@type": "ItemPage"
    },
    {
      "@type": "ItemPage"
    }
  ]
}

Another option is to use mainEntity to reference an ItemList. It conveys that the list is the primary entity of the CollectionPage, so for consumers it’s probably clear that this is the collection the page is about.

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "CollectionPage",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@type": "ItemList",
    "itemListElement": [
      {
        "@type": "ItemPage"
      },
      {
        "@type": "ItemPage"
      },
      {
        "@type": "ItemPage"
      }
    ]
  }
}