Structured data is one of those areas where Indian websites are both over-implemented and under-implemented simultaneously. Over-implemented because developers copy-paste schema blocks from tutorials without verifying they match the page content. Under-implemented because entire schema types that could generate rich results — Person schema for professionals, Product schema for e-commerce, HowTo schema for tutorial content — are simply absent.
This audit checklist walks through the full process of verifying structured data on an Indian business website: from initial inventory through validation to confirming rich results are actually appearing in Search Console. The goal is not to add schema everywhere — it's to ensure that schema present is accurate and valid, and that worthwhile schema types are not missing.
Step 1: Inventory Every Page Type and Its Required Schema
Before touching any code, document every distinct page type on the site and determine what schema each should carry. This mapping exercise prevents both the chaos of random schema additions and the oversight of missing high-value schema opportunities.
For a typical Indian business website, the page type inventory looks like this:
Homepage — Organisation or LocalBusiness schema, Person schema for solo practitioners, BreadcrumbList for sites with deep navigation, WebSite schema with SearchAction if the site has internal search.
Service pages — Service schema, LocalBusiness schema with the service listed under hasOfferCatalog, FAQPage if the page has an FAQ section with genuinely unique Q&A pairs.
Blog post pages — Article or BlogPosting schema with required datePublished, dateModified, author, and publisher properties.
About page — Person schema for the business owner or founder, Organisation schema for the business entity.
Location or city pages — LocalBusiness schema with the specific city's address and postal code in addressLocality and postalCode (not the head office address on every page).
FAQ page — FAQPage schema covering all Q&A on the page.
Product pages (e-commerce) — Product schema with offers, aggregateRating if reviews exist, and brand.
Write this inventory down before proceeding. It becomes the master checklist for the audit.
Step 2: Validate Every Existing Schema Block
Run every page type through two tools: Google's Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) and the Schema.org validator (validator.schema.org). These tools catch different classes of errors — Google's test shows whether the schema is eligible for rich results, while the Schema.org validator checks conformance to the full schema.org specification including properties Google doesn't require but which other search engines use.
Document every error and warning returned. Pay particular attention to "missing required field" errors — these typically prevent rich results from appearing even when the schema looks syntactically correct. Common missing required fields on Indian business websites:
For LocalBusiness: addressLocality (city name) and postalCode are frequently omitted or set to generic values. An Indian clinic schema that lists only the state ("Kerala") without a city and postal code fails Google's LocalBusiness validation. The address must be specific: street, city/town, state, and PIN code.
For Article: datePublished is required and must be in ISO 8601 format (2026-06-11T08:00:00+05:30). Many Indian WordPress sites use inconsistent date formats or omit this field entirely. The author field must be a Person type with a name property — just a string value is insufficient for current Google requirements.
For FAQPage: Each Question must have an acceptedAnswer property containing an Answer type. Missing this nesting structure means the FAQ schema parses but the rich result doesn't render.
LocalBusiness Schema Errors Common in India
LocalBusiness is the most widely used and most frequently broken schema type on Indian business websites. Four specific errors appear repeatedly in site audits across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra.
Wrong @type for the business category. Using "Organization" instead of the specific LocalBusiness subtype wastes the specificity that schema.org provides. A dental clinic should use "Dentist", not "MedicalBusiness" and certainly not "Organization". A law firm should use "LegalService". A restaurant should use "Restaurant". The full schema.org type hierarchy for LocalBusiness has over 100 specific subtypes — using the most specific applicable type signals more clearly to Google what the business does.
addressLocality mismatch. A recurring problem on multi-city service pages: the developer uses a single LocalBusiness schema block for all location pages, with the head office city (often Kochi or Trivandrum) in addressLocality regardless of which city the page targets. A page targeting Kozhikode must have "Kozhikode" in addressLocality and the correct Kozhikode postal code (673001) — not the company's registration address in Ernakulam.
aggregateRating without actual reviews. Google's Rich Results guidelines explicitly state that aggregateRating must reflect actual reviews, not aspirational or fabricated values. Websites that hard-code rating values like "ratingValue": "4.9", "reviewCount": "347" without those reviews existing anywhere verifiable risk a manual penalty. If you have Google Business Profile reviews, mirror the actual aggregate values from there. If you don't have verifiable structured reviews, don't include aggregateRating schema.
Opening hours in wrong format. The openingHours property requires a specific format: two-letter day abbreviation followed by time in 24-hour format (Mo-Fr 09:00-18:00). Many Indian developers write it as "Monday to Friday 9 AM to 6 PM" which is human-readable but machine-unreadable. Days: Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa, Su.
FAQPage Schema: Errors That Cause Google to Ignore or Penalise
FAQPage schema is both the most requested and most abused structured data type on Indian content sites. Three failure patterns appear consistently.
Duplicate FAQ schema across multiple pages. An SEO practice common among Indian agencies in 2023–2024 was adding the same FAQPage schema block to every page on a site — identical questions and answers appearing across the homepage, every service page, and every blog post. Google began treating this as a spam signal in the 2025 quality updates. FAQPage schema must be unique per page, reflecting the specific questions answered on that specific page. If the same FAQ question appears on three different pages, it should appear in schema on only the most authoritative page for that topic.
FAQ answers that are too short. A one-sentence answer might be sufficient for some questions, but answers under 30–40 words are frequently not served as rich results by Google even when technically valid. Google's quality threshold for FAQ rich results favours answers that actually address the question rather than deflecting it. "Yes, we provide GST services" as an answer to "Do you provide GST registration services in Kochi?" is technically valid schema but rarely appears as a rich result. A two-to-three sentence answer that explains what GST registration involves and how the service works performs significantly better.
Schema content not matching on-page content. Google's guidelines require that FAQ schema reflect questions and answers that are visible on the page. If the schema lists a question-answer pair that doesn't appear in the visible HTML, it's considered deceptive markup and can result in manual actions. Every FAQ entry in the schema must correspond exactly to an FAQ visible on the page.
Article Schema for Blog Posts: Required vs Recommended
For Article/BlogPosting schema, the required properties for rich result eligibility are: headline, image, datePublished, and author. Missing any of these prevents the schema from generating eligible rich results.
The author property deserves specific attention. For a personal brand site like a consultant or doctor, the author should be a Person type with both a name and a URL pointing to the author's about page or homepage. Better still, use the @id property to link the author to a sitewide Person schema entity: "author": {"@type": "Person", "@id": "https://yourdomain.com/#person", "name": "Author Name"}. This @id reference tells Google that all articles authored by this entity share the same identity, helping build author authority over time.
The publisher property requires a logo. Many Indian WordPress sites use schema plugins that generate Article schema without the publisher.logo object — this generates a warning in the Rich Results Test and is required for Article rich results in Google News surfaces. The logo must be an ImageObject with url, width, and height properties.
dateModified should differ from datePublished when content has been updated. Setting both to the same timestamp (as happens when schema is auto-generated at publication and never updated) is technically valid but misses the opportunity to signal freshness when you genuinely update content.
Person Schema for Indian Professionals
Person schema is frequently missing from Indian professional service websites and, when present, is usually incomplete. For a consultant, doctor, lawyer, or CA who wants to build author authority and appear in Knowledge Panel results, a well-formed Person schema on the homepage is essential.
The most important properties: @id (a unique URL like https://yourdomain.com/#person — this is the canonical identifier Google uses to unify all mentions of this person across the web), name, jobTitle, url (homepage), and sameAs as an array containing the person's LinkedIn profile URL, Google Scholar profile if applicable, Wikipedia page if one exists, and any relevant professional registry URLs.
The sameAs array is what enables Google to connect your website's Person schema to external data sources. For an Indian doctor with an NMC registry entry, linking to that entry in sameAs allows Google to corroborate the credential claim. For a CA, linking to the ICAI member directory entry. For an IT consultant, the LinkedIn profile URL is the most valuable sameAs target because Google actively crawls and references LinkedIn data.
Verifying Rich Results in Google Search Console
Adding valid schema does not guarantee rich results appear in search. Google decides whether to show rich results based on its own quality thresholds, and a schema that passes validation may still not generate visible rich results.
To check whether your schema is generating actual rich results: in Google Search Console, navigate to Search Results under Performance, then filter by "Search type" and select "Rich results" (if your property has rich result data). This shows impressions and clicks from rich result appearances separately from regular blue-link results.
The Enhancements section in Search Console also lists specific rich result types detected on your site — FAQ, Article, Product, LocalBusiness — with counts of valid items, warnings, and errors. This is the ground truth for whether your schema investment is producing visible results.
Which Schemas Are Worth Implementing for Indian SMBs
Not every schema type is worth the implementation effort for every site. For Indian small and medium businesses, a prioritised list based on rich result value versus effort:
High value, implement first: LocalBusiness (drives star ratings and map pack data), FAQPage (accordion results that increase SERP real estate), Article/BlogPosting (required for news and Discover eligibility), BreadcrumbList (improves URL display in search results).
Moderate value, implement if resources allow: Person schema for solo practitioners, Product schema for e-commerce, HowTo schema for instructional content, Event schema for businesses with regular events or webinars.
Low value for most Indian SMBs, deprioritise: VideoObject (only if you embed YouTube videos with unique value on your pages), SoftwareApplication (only for actual software products), JobPosting (only for companies that actively hire and maintain job listings).
The structured data audit process is not a one-time exercise. As content is added, pages are updated, and Google's rich result requirements evolve, schema needs periodic review. A quarterly check using the Rich Results Test on key page types and a review of Search Console Enhancements errors is sufficient for most Indian business websites to stay on top of structured data health.