Which property to use for WebPage sections?

Question

I have pages that aren't articles and have multiple sections on the page describing different organizations/services and their information. I am defining the page as a WebPage since this page isn't really an article.

Which property should I use to best mark these sections on the page?

General questions about SEO techniques are on topic over at [webmasters.se]. If you'll note from the [tag:seo] tag, the scope for SEO questions here is extremely narrow. — , Jun 27 '17 at 15:53
@Will: This question doesn’t seem to be about SEO (well, it has the tag, but the question itself doesn’t ask for SEO advice). Schema.org is a vocabulary/ontology which happens to be relevant for SEO, but this is just one of many reasons for using it. I agree that [webmasters.se] is a better fit, but it should be on-topic here, too. — unor, Jun 27 '17 at 15:54
@unor Based on what is the "best" markup re SEO this question is best suited for wse.. — , Jun 27 '17 at 16:10

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 27 '17 at 16:37

1

WebPageElement or one of its more specific types might be what you're looking for.

There is a full hierarchy of types that should point you in the right direction.

If you're looking to markup contact information such as email, phone etc. you might want to try ContactPoint or PostalAddress.

answered Jun 27 '17 at 16:37

Brad

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Thanks for the response. What would be the advantage of WebPageElement over something like an "ItemList" of "itemListElement" objects in the "mainEntity" property of a WebPage? – edwardchiapet Jun 27 '17 at 17:15

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 27 '17 at 18:07

As @Brad notes, the WebPageElement type would be the closest match for something like a "webpage section". You could use the hasPart property to denote that they are parts of your WebPage.

But I think that it’s typically not useful to provide WebPageElement (or one of its child types) in the first place: don’t say something about how you structure your page, say something about the things you describe on your page.

So if you provide data about an organization, use Organization. If you provide data about a service offered by an organization, use Service (→ provider Organization) etc.

Use the mainEntity property of your WebPage (or one if its more specific types) to link the primary item the page is about:

If the page is about a single organization, you could use:
ItemPage mainEntity Organization.
If the page is about multiple organizations, you could add a list:
CollectionPage mainEntity ItemList

(and each Organization would be its own list item, added via itemListElement)

(By the way, even if Article would be appropriate in your case, you could still use WebPage in addition, so it’s not either-or. In that case, the mainEntity of the WebPage, or the more specific ItemPage, would be the Article item.)

Which property to use for WebPage sections?

2 Answers2