Glossary
Structured data
Machine-readable facts about the page, in a format crawlers parse.
What it is
Structured data is markup — usually JSON-LD — that states what a page contains: this is a product, this is its price, this is its availability. Search engines and increasingly automated answer surfaces read it instead of guessing from prose.
Why it costs you money
It affects how your result is displayed and whether shopping surfaces and assistants can quote your product correctly. It is not a ranking factor, but a rich result with price and availability earns clicks a plain one does not.
How to check it yourself
Test a product URL in the Rich Results Test, then watch Search Console's Product snippets report. The markup must match what the page visibly shows, or the enhancement gets withdrawn.
Where this matters