There have been discussions in Schema.org Github Issues about the way Organizations their offices, branches and other locations can be marked up. (The trail is here: #1734) It started with a question about why the property hasMap was available for a LocalBusiness but not for Organization. The simple answer being that LocalBusiness inherits the hasMap property from Place, one of its super-types, and not from Organiszation, its other super-type.
As was commented in the thread…
there are plenty of organizations/corporations that have a head office which nobody would consider a
LocalBusinessyet for which it would be handy to be able to express it can be found on a map.
The following discussion exposed a lack of clarity in the way to structure descriptions of Organizations and their locations, offices, branches , etc. It is also clear that the current structure when applied correctly can deliver the functionality required. This is not to recognise that the descriptions of terms and associated examples could not be improved, and may be helped by some tweaking to the current structure — the discussion continues!
To address that lack of clarity I thought it would be useful to share some examples here.
The LocalBusiness simple case
As a combination of Organization and Place, LocalBusiness gives you most anything you would need to describe a local shop, repair garage, café, etc. Thus:
<script type=“application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “LocalBusiness”,
“address”: {
“@type”: “PostalAddress”,
“addressLocality”: “Mexico Beach”,
“addressRegion”: “FL”,
“streetAddress”: “3102 Highway 98”
},
“description”: “A superb collection of fine gifts and clothing to accent your stay in Mexico Beach.”,
“name”: “Beachwalk Beachwear & Giftware”,
“telephone”: “850-648-4200”
}
</script>
There are plenty of other properties available, so for example if you have link to a map you could add:
“hasMap”: “https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Beachwalk/@29.94904,-85.4207543,17z”,
If you had other information about the business such as business numbers or tax identifiers you could add:
“vatID”: “1234567890abc”,
What about a group of LocalBusinesses
Also this is a fairly simple case. By using the parentOrganization & subOrganization properties (inherited from the Organiztion super-type) you can build a hierarchy of relationships as complex as you would ever need:
<script type=“application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “LocalBusiness”,
“@id”: “http://localshops.example.com/mainBranch”,
“name”: “Localshops”,
“subOrganization”: “http://localshops.example.com/cityBranch”
}
</script>
<script type=“application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “LocalBusiness”,
“@id”: “http://localshops.example.com/cityBranch”,
“name”: “Localshops”,
“parentOrganization”: “http://localshops.example.com/mainBranch”
}
</script>
Location and POS
There are a couple of properties inherited from Organization (location, hasPOS) which may help you link to things that might not be obvious local businesses — the warehouse location for your group of hardware stores, or the beach kiosk for your café for example.
Banks, Libraries, and Hotels
There are many local examples of larger organizations that appear on our high streets, for some of the more common ones there are ready made subtypes of LocalBusiness – BankOrCreditUnion, Library, Hotel, etc. If you can’t find a suitable one, default to LocalBusiness.
This possibility sometimes causes some confusion. For instance Wells Fargo, the global finance company, could no way be considered as a local business, however their branch in your local city can indeed be considered as one. For example:
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “BankOrCreditUnion”,
“name”: “Wells Fargo – Smalltown Branch”,
“parentOrganization”: “http://wellsfargo.com”
}
Governments, Global Corporations, Online Groups
Picking up on that confusion about non-LocalBusiness-ness, brings me to the prime use of the Organization type. That prime use in my experience is to describe the legal entity, corporate organiation, cooperation group, government, international body, etc. From a dictionary definition: “an organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department.”
My approach to this would be to describe the organization first — name, description, email, foundingDate, leicode, logo, taxID, etc. If it has a registered or main address, use the address property, if it has channels for specific contact methods etc, use contactPoint to describe areaServed, contactType etc.
Some of these organizations operate out of various locations — head offices, regional/country based main/local offices, factories, warehouses, distribution centres, research and development centres, laboratories, etc. The list is a substantial one. This is where the location property comes into play.
Each of those locations can then be described using a Place type or one of its subtypes…
<script type=“application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “Organization”,
“@id”: “http://global-corp.com”,
“name”: “Global-Corp Company”,
“location”: [
{
“@type”: “Place”,
“name”: “Global-Corp Company HQ”,
“address”: “Future City Development, Main Street, Anytown, NY”,
“hasMap”: “https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Anytown”
},
{
“@type”: “Place”,
“name”: “Global-Corp Company Research Laboratory”,
“address”: “Lab1, Future Park, Anytown, NY”,
“hasMap”: “https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Anytown”
}
]
}
</script>
This is not a perfect solution, it would be nice to have specific subtypes of Place for Office, Factory, etc. or a placeType property on Place. I am sure there will be continued discussion on this. In the meantime what is already available goes a long way towards describing what is needed from Global Corporations to Local Cafés and everything in-between.
If this is interesting, but is new and you would like a simple introduction to how Schema.or fits in with the SEO view of things, you could try 10 Schema Codes You Need For Successful SEO.