Schema – the Myth
The tl;dr – Schema is marketed as the language of the web, Trust and bots are attracted to it like people are to crack coccaine.
Verdict: This is an absolute lie.
The Reality: Web Devs think lay people are stupid and dont know what Schema is (truth be told, a lot dont). Schema is rapidly passing its sell by date.
Firstly – all the advice you see on X, Reddit and LinkedIn – mostly from bots, llm content or people parroting it – is like a checklist of x,y,z, schema.
Schema – the Reality
1. Schema does not attract bots
From an SEO PoV – this is the most vital. And the easiest to test. Google is a relevancy engine. Just like for PageSpeed/CWVs – Google will not pass over the most authoritative/CTR successful domain for a faster one or one with schema
The test – as always – is not just to put schema into a page and see it rank and say hey presto : it worked. The test is to create a new page, not put schema in and when it ranks – that argument is floored. Tyson’d. Jake Paul’d. Its over. If Bots prefer Schema – with the amount of pages on the web – if I put up a page with no schema and it ranks – then its game over.
Lets get into the details
Schema Usage
Schema is (was almost) good for hotels, flights, jobs and ecommerce if you prefer. and I have worked in all of these areas.
These dont make you rank – its just how Google ingests the data.
From an SEO PoV – schema is publishing.
Entity Schema
You cannot make an entity from schema – and I’ve seen 100’s of fake case studies from spammers here claiming this and citing examples of people that are already known entities.
I am one but I share a name with a famous actor and so it doesn surface. But Schema Bros are making out that you can connect relationships – as if its a new pagerank and this is downright nonsesne, garbage
FAQ Schema
Google ignores FAQ schema- I ahve tens of thousands of FAQs ranking – its one of my oldest playbook hooks. I’ve done podcasts about this. I never use Schema. And here’s why – because I can read:
It clearly states:
Feature availability
FAQ rich results are only available for well-known, authoritative websites that are government-focused or health-focused. The
In other words – Google isn’t reading it. Because I’ve word in both consulting and in-house roles – I’ve had Web Devs remove FAQ Schema and guess what: nothing happened.
Why does FAQ schema in particular annoy me
A lot of web devs – like every project I’ve worked on – like accordion FAQs. I – who works with brand new no to low authority domains – I need FAQs to build me authority.
That means in the equation: Rank Position = Relevance X authority – if my page is 100% relevante to the search phrase, I get a massive score and I can bypass sites, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH high authority because they’re using accordions (and mostly with FAQ Schema)