What is Organization Schema

Full definition

Organization is a Schema.org type that represents any collective human entity—a corporation, a small business, a nonprofit, an educational institution, or a government body. It is one of the most broadly applicable types in the Schema.org vocabulary and serves as the parent class for more specific subtypes such as LocalBusiness, Corporation, EducationalOrganization, and GovernmentOrganization.

Core properties of the Organization type include name (the legal or trading name), url (the canonical homepage), logo (an ImageObject or URL for the organization's logo), contactPoint (a ContactPoint object with phone number, email, and contact type), address (a PostalAddress), foundingDate (YYYY format), numberOfEmployees (a QuantitativeValue), and sameAs (an array of URLs to authoritative third-party profiles such as LinkedIn, Wikidata, or Crunchbase).

The sameAs property is particularly significant: it links the organization entity described on the website to external identity records, helping search engines build a confident entity graph that connects the website to real-world verifiable facts about the company.

For businesses with a physical location, LocalBusiness (a subtype of Organization) adds location-specific properties such as openingHoursSpecification, geo, hasMap, and priceRange. Using the most specific applicable subtype is always preferable to using the base Organization type.

Why it matters in 2026

Entity-based search has replaced keyword-based search as the underlying model for major search engines. Google's Knowledge Graph, Bing's entity index, and the entity layers used by AI Overviews all depend on linking web content to known real-world entities. An Organization markup block on the homepage is the primary on-site signal that confirms the website belongs to a specific, identifiable business.

Without this signal, a business website is an anonymous collection of documents. With it, the site is attributed to a named entity with verifiable properties—a prerequisite for appearing in branded knowledge panels, for being cited by name in AI-generated answers, and for passing entity-consistency checks that growing numbers of ranking systems apply.

How to implement

1. Place the Organization markup on the homepage, since the homepage is the canonical representation of the business entity. Optionally repeat a leaner version on the contact page.
2. Add a <script type="application/ld+json"> block with @type set to "Organization" or the most specific applicable subtype (e.g., "LocalBusiness", "ProfessionalService").
3. Set name to the legal or primary trading name, url to the canonical homepage URL, and logo to an ImageObject with the url of the logo file. Google recommends a logo that is at least 112 x 112 pixels and in a web-safe format.
4. Add contactPoint with at minimum a telephone and contactType (e.g., "customer service").
5. Include address as a PostalAddress with streetAddress, addressLocality, addressRegion, postalCode, and addressCountry.
6. Add sameAs as an array of URLs to verified third-party profiles: Google Business Profile, LinkedIn company page, Wikidata item, and any other authoritative external record.
7. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test and confirm the logo and contact information are correctly parsed.
8. After deployment, check Google Search Console for any structured data errors. Monitor Google Search for branded queries to observe whether a knowledge panel appears over time.

Example

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Acme Home Services",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "logo": {
    "@type": "ImageObject",
    "url": "https://example.com/logo.png",
    "width": 300,
    "height": 300
  },
  "contactPoint": {
    "@type": "ContactPoint",
    "telephone": "+1-800-555-0100",
    "contactType": "customer service",
    "areaServed": "US",
    "availableLanguage": "English"
  },
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "123 Main Street",
    "addressLocality": "Austin",
    "addressRegion": "TX",
    "postalCode": "78701",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  },
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/",
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12345678"
  ]
}

Related terms

Schema markup, FAQPage schema, HowTo schema.