What is Organization schema

Full definition

Organization is one of the most fundamental types in the schema.org vocabulary. It describes a corporate or institutional entity and its identifying attributes. Its most commonly used subtypes are LocalBusiness (a business with a physical location or defined service area), Corporation (a limited company or plc) and ProfessionalService (a regulated professional service such as a law firm or surveying practice).

The most relevant properties are: name (trading name), legalName (full registered legal name), url (canonical website URL), logo (absolute URL of the logo image), address (a PostalAddress object), telephone, email, sameAs (an array of URLs pointing to verified social profiles and authority directories), founder, foundingDate, numberOfEmployees and areaServed.

The sameAs property is particularly significant for entity disambiguation. By pointing to verified profiles on Wikipedia, Wikidata, LinkedIn, Companies House and other authority directories, it creates a bridge between the website and the company's records in multiple knowledge bases. Google's Knowledge Graph uses these connections to resolve ambiguity: when a user searches for the company name, the graph can confidently associate the result with the correct entity rather than conflating it with similarly named organisations.

Property	Required	Description
name	Yes	Trading name as it appears publicly
url	Yes	Canonical HTTPS URL of the website
logo	Recommended	Absolute URL of the logo image
address	Recommended	Complete PostalAddress object
sameAs	Recommended	Social profiles and authority directory URLs
legalName	No	Full registered legal name
foundingDate	No	Year of incorporation (YYYY format)

Why it matters in 2026

Generative AI search systems need to recognise organisations as trustworthy entities before citing them as sources. Organization markup with a well-populated sameAs array establishes a connection between the website and the company's records in multiple knowledge bases, reducing entity ambiguity. This matters because AI models doing passage-level retrieval are more likely to cite a source they can resolve to a known, consistent entity than one that appears only in isolation.

Google may use Organization markup to display a knowledge panel directly in search results when someone searches for the company name — showing the logo, description, website and contact channels without the user needing to visit the site. For trades and construction businesses competing on brand recognition, this panel is a direct trust signal at the point of search.

How to implement

1. Add a single Organization block (or the most appropriate subtype, such as LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService) on the home page and the contact page of the site.
2. Set name to the exact trading name and legalName to the full registered legal name, including company type (Ltd, PLC, LLP).
3. Add url with the canonical HTTPS URL of the website.
4. Include logo as an absolute URL pointing to a square or rectangular PNG image with a transparent background.
5. Complete the address object with streetAddress, addressLocality, postalCode, addressCountry (ISO two-letter code, GB for United Kingdom) and addressRegion.
6. Add all verified social profiles and authority directory pages to the sameAs array. Prioritise LinkedIn, Trustpilot, Checkatrade, Yell and any Wikipedia or Wikidata entries.
7. Validate using Google's Rich Results Test and monitor the Organisation entity report in Google Search Console.

Example

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "ProfessionalService",
  "name": "Thames Valley Electricals",
  "legalName": "Thames Valley Electricals Ltd",
  "url": "https://thamesvalleyelectricals.co.uk",
  "logo": "https://thamesvalleyelectricals.co.uk/logo.png",
  "foundingDate": "2011",
  "telephone": "+44-1189-555-0100",
  "email": "info@thamesvalleyelectricals.co.uk",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "14 Station Road",
    "addressLocality": "Reading",
    "postalCode": "RG1 1AA",
    "addressRegion": "Berkshire",
    "addressCountry": "GB"
  },
  "areaServed": {
    "@type": "AdministrativeArea",
    "name": "Thames Valley"
  },
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/",
    "https://www.checkatrade.com/trades/thamesvalleyelectricals",
    "https://www.trustpilot.com/review/thamesvalleyelectricals.co.uk"
  ],
  "description": "NICEIC-approved electrical contractor serving Reading, Oxford and the Thames Valley since 2011."
}

Related terms

Schema markup, FAQPage schema, HowTo schema.