Hot Posts

10/recent/ticker-posts

How do I apply multilingual schema markup in Europe?

Guaranteed Rank June 19, 2025


 Applying multilingual schema markup correctly is essential for SEO in Europe, especially when targeting multiple countries and languages with ccTLDs or hreflang implementations. Schema helps search engines understand your content, and when done in multiple languages, it ensures rich results are shown appropriately in local SERPs.

Here’s a complete guide to applying multilingual schema markup in a European context:

✅ 1. Use Schema.org Markup per Language Version

Each localized version of your website should have schema markup in the same language as the content of that page.

Example (LocalBusiness schema)

French (for fr.example.com):

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness",
  "name": "Boulangerie Le Pain Chaud",
  "description": "Boulangerie artisanale à Paris avec pain frais tous les jours.",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "12 Rue de Paris",
    "addressLocality": "Paris",
    "postalCode": "75001",
    "addressCountry": "FR"
  },
  "telephone": "+33 1 23 45 67 89"
}

German (for de.example.com):

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness",
  "name": "Bäckerei Frisches Brot",
  "description": "Handwerkliche Bäckerei in Berlin mit täglich frischem Brot.",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "Musterstraße 12",
    "addressLocality": "Berlin",
    "postalCode": "10115",
    "addressCountry": "DE"
  },
  "telephone": "+49 30 123456789"
}

🟡 Tip: Don't just translate the name and description; also adapt for cultural and keyword relevance.

✅ 2. Match Schema to Page Language and Hreflang

  • If you're using hreflang tags to signal alternate language versions, the schema should also be written in that language.

  • Google recommends this alignment to avoid confusion and improve indexing of localized structured data.

Example hreflang setup in <head>:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-fr" href="https://fr.example.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-de" href="https://de.example.com/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="https://example.com/gb/" />

✅ 3. Use Country-Specific Info in Schema Fields

  • Use localized phone numbers, currencies, addresses, and languages in the schema fields.

  • Country-specific elements help Google show local rich results (like map packs or snippets in local language).

✅ 4. Localize Common Schema Types for Europe

Schema types often used across EU markets:

Schema Type Use Case Notes
Organization Company info (multiple countries) Localize name, description, address
LocalBusiness Shops, restaurants, service providers Local phone/address/working hours per country
Product E-commerce (price, currency, shipping) Use priceCurrency, availability, offers
FAQPage Voice & rich snippet enhancement Write Q&A in local language
Article, BlogPosting Publishers, media, blogs Local language for headline and articleBody
Event Local or regional events Include localized location, startDate, language

✅ 5. Use Language Tags in Schema (Optional)

Although not required, you can explicitly set the language of certain text fields using the @language property if using RDFa or Microdata formats (not JSON-LD). This is mostly helpful in multilingual documents or mixed-language scenarios.

<span itemprop="description" lang="it">Pizzeria tradizionale a Milano.</span>

❌ Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake Why It’s Bad
Using schema in only one language Confuses search engines in multilingual SEO
Mixing languages in a single schema Reduces clarity and relevance of content
Forgetting hreflang integration Schema doesn’t override wrong hreflang signals
Copying schema with untranslated content Looks spammy and is less likely to show in SERPs

✅ Tools to Validate & Maintain Multilingual Schema

  • 🔍 Google Rich Results Test – test per language version.

  • 🧪 Schema Markup Validator (by Schema.org) – validate structured data.

  • 🧰 Screaming Frog + Structured Data Extractor plugin – crawl and verify multilingual schema at scale.

  • 🗂️ CMS plugins like Yoast SEO (WordPress) or Shopify SEO Manager support localized schema setup.

🌍 Summary

To apply multilingual schema markup correctly in Europe:

  • Add separate JSON-LD markup per localized page.

  • Localize all text fields, currency, address, and contact info.

  • Ensure alignment with hreflang, domain structure, and localized content.

  • Validate each version independently.

If you tell me your site structure (e.g. subdirectories or subdomains) and which countries/languages you're targeting, I can help generate or audit schema markup templates for you.

Guaranteed Rank

Posted by Guaranteed Rank

Post a Comment

0 Comments