8 min read · AI Visibility · Last updated July 2026
Quick answer: A schema audit reviews all structured data markup on your site for correctness, completeness, and strategic coverage. It identifies missing schema types, broken implementations, and outdated properties. A comprehensive schema audit should cover Organization, FAQPage, Article, BreadcrumbList, Person, and any product or local business schemas — validating each against Google’s Rich Results Test and Schema.org specifications.
Introduction
Schema markup is one of those areas where implementation quality varies enormously. Some sites have no schema. Some have schema that partially works. Some have schema that is technically valid but strategically incomplete — missing the properties that actually matter for AI extraction.
A schema audit finds and fixes all three problems.
This guide gives you a complete, actionable schema audit checklist that you can run against any website in under an hour.
What you’ll learn:
– The 8 schema types every business should audit
– Required vs. recommended properties for each type
– How to check for schema coverage gaps across your site
– A prioritized action plan for schema improvements
– Ongoing schema maintenance protocols
Table of Contents
- Pre-Audit: Site Schema Inventory
- Organization Schema Audit
- FAQPage Schema Audit
- Article / BlogPosting Schema Audit
- LocalBusiness Schema Audit
- Product Schema Audit
- Person Schema Audit
- BreadcrumbList Schema Audit
- HowTo Schema Audit
- Complete Schema Audit Scorecard
- Frequently Asked Questions
Pre-Audit: Site Schema Inventory
Before auditing individual schema types, build a schema inventory:
Step 1: Crawl for schema presence
Use Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) with the “Extract” feature to crawl your site and identify which pages have JSON-LD. Filter for pages with no schema — these are immediate gaps.
Step 2: Google Search Console check
Review the Enhancements section of GSC. Which schema types does Google report? Are there existing errors?
Step 3: Sample validation
Pick your 10 most important pages (homepage, top service pages, top blog posts). Run each through the Rich Results Test. Note errors, warnings, and missing schema types.
Inventory output: A spreadsheet with columns:
– Page URL
– Schema types present
– Validation status (valid/warning/error)
– Missing schema types
– Priority (High/Medium/Low)
Organization Schema Audit
Check on: Homepage, About page, Contact page
| Property | Required | Present | Accurate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| name | ✓ | Exact legal name | ||
| url | ✓ | Canonical homepage URL | ||
| logo | ✓ | HTTPS image URL | ||
| description | Recommended | 150-300 words | ||
| telephone | Recommended | |||
| Recommended | ||||
| address | Recommended | PostalAddress object | ||
| sameAs | High impact | LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Wikidata | ||
| foundingDate | Recommended | |||
| numberOfEmployees | Recommended | |||
| areaServed | Recommended | Countries or cities served |
Common Organization schema failures:
– Missing sameAs (most common gap)
– Logo URL returns 404 or is not HTTPS
– Incorrect or outdated URL
– Missing description
– sameAs includes abandoned profiles (broken URLs)
FAQPage Schema Audit
Check on: FAQ pages, service pages with FAQ sections, blog posts with Q&A
| Property | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| @type: FAQPage declared | ||
| mainEntity array present | ||
| Each Q uses @type: Question | ||
| Each Q has “name” property (question text) | ||
| Each Q has acceptedAnswer object | ||
| Each answer has @type: Answer | ||
| Each answer has “text” property | ||
| FAQ questions appear visibly on page | ||
| Minimum 1 FAQ (ideally 5+) | ||
| No marketing/promotional language in answers |
Critical FAQPage rule: Every FAQ in the schema must appear as visible text on the page. Schema FAQs not visible on-page violate Google’s guidelines.
Article / BlogPosting Schema Audit
Check on: All blog posts and content articles
| Property | Required | Present | Accurate |
|---|---|---|---|
| @type (Article or BlogPosting) | ✓ | ||
| headline | ✓ | ||
| image | ✓ | ||
| datePublished | ✓ | ||
| dateModified | Recommended | ||
| author (Person or Organization) | ✓ | ||
| author.name | ✓ | ||
| author.url | Recommended | ||
| publisher (Organization) | Recommended | ||
| publisher.name | Recommended | ||
| publisher.logo | Recommended | ||
| description | Recommended | ||
| mainEntityOfPage | Recommended | ||
| wordCount | Optional |
Most common Article schema failures:
– Missing dateModified (freshness signal for AI)
– Author is an Organization (not always wrong, but less valuable than Person)
– Missing author url property (weakens author entity link)
– Headline does not match the actual H1 of the page
LocalBusiness Schema Audit
Check on: Homepage, About page, location pages
| Property | Required | Present | Accurate |
|---|---|---|---|
| @type (specific subtype if available) | ✓ | ||
| name | ✓ | ||
| address (PostalAddress) | ✓ | ||
| address.streetAddress | ✓ | ||
| address.addressLocality | ✓ | ||
| address.addressCountry | ✓ | ||
| telephone | Recommended | ||
| url | Recommended | ||
| openingHoursSpecification | Recommended | ||
| geo (GeoCoordinates) | Recommended | ||
| aggregateRating | High impact | ||
| sameAs | High impact | ||
| areaServed | Recommended |
Product Schema Audit
Check on: All product/service pages
| Property | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| @type: Product | ||
| name | ||
| description (2-4 sentences) | ||
| image (multiple if possible) | ||
| brand.name | ||
| offers.@type: Offer | ||
| offers.price | ||
| offers.priceCurrency | ||
| offers.availability | ||
| offers.url | ||
| aggregateRating (if reviews exist) | ||
| aggregateRating.ratingValue | ||
| aggregateRating.reviewCount |
Complete Schema Audit Scorecard
Complete Schema Audit Scorecard
Score your site’s schema implementation across all critical types
0/18
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How often should a full schema audit be conducted?
A: A comprehensive audit should run quarterly for sites with active content publishing or CMS updates. For stable sites with infrequent changes, twice per year is adequate. Always run a targeted audit after any major site redesign, platform migration, or CMS update.
Q: What is the highest-priority schema type if I can only implement one?
A: For most businesses: Organization schema with sameAs properties. It establishes your entity identity across the knowledge graph and is the foundation that all other schema types build on. Second priority: FAQPage schema for any pages with Q&A content — highest AI citation impact per implementation hour.
Q: Can too much schema hurt my site?
A: Technically valid schema cannot hurt your site. Invalid schema (errors) can cause Google to ignore the markup. The risk comes from violating specific schema guidelines — inflating review counts, including schema for content not visible on the page, or using incorrect schema types. Valid, honest schema implementation has no downside.
Conclusion
A schema audit is one of the highest-ROI activities in AI visibility strategy — it surfaces implementation errors that are silently costing you citation eligibility, and identifies strategic gaps where a few hours of implementation work can unlock new rich result and AI extraction opportunities.
Run the full audit scorecard above, prioritize your action items from highest to lowest impact, and schedule quarterly reviews to maintain schema health as your site evolves.
Get AI-Ready with Ignited Nepal
We conduct comprehensive schema audits and implement the full structured data stack — from Organization to FAQPage to HowTo — with validation and GSC monitoring included.
→ Request an AI Visibility Audit
Written by the Ignited Nepal AI Visibility team. ignitednepal.com