ShipworkSite inspection
Checks
Every error, explainedGuides →
Pricing Learn Guides

Is your structured data valid and complete?

JSON-LD is the machine-readable layer that search engines and AI assistants use to read a page. It can disappear without anything visible changing, and a single trailing comma can make a whole block invisible.

Runs the Structured data check against a bounded sample of your site, from outside your network. Nothing is stored.

What this check inspects

Shipwork fetches the page and extracts every application/ld+json block. It parses each one, walks every node that declares a type, including nodes nested under @graph or under ProductGroup hasVariant, and checks the recommended properties for known types such as Product, Offer, Article, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList and Organization. It reports blocks that are not valid JSON, blocks with no @context, and missing recommended properties.

What a failure means

No JSON-LD blocks at all is an error: there is nothing for a machine to read. An unparseable block is an error and it takes the whole block with it, so a Product can vanish while the page still shows a price. Missing recommended properties are warnings, and repeated types outside the ones that repeat by design are informational.

How to fix it

  1. View the page source, not the inspector, and search for application/ld+json. The inspector shows markup injected after scripts run, which a raw fetch never sees.
  2. Validate the JSON. One trailing comma or a stray character makes an entire block invisible.
  3. Read the type inside the block. A Product should carry name, and each Offer should carry price and priceCurrency.
  4. If you use ProductGroup, make sure each variant under hasVariant carries its own offer rather than relying on the parent.

A typical failure, worked through

The setupA store hand-edits its product template and adds a second JSON-LD block for returns. The edit leaves a trailing comma in the first block.

What the check reportsThe check reports that block 1 is not valid JSON and no Product node is found, even though the page visibly shows a price and the block looks almost correct.

The pointJSON is all or nothing per block. One character failure removes the entire structured data, and nothing on the rendered page gives it away.

Questions

What is ProductGroup?
A type modern Shopify themes emit for a product with variants, where each variant is nested under hasVariant. It is valid, but simple validators report the parent as missing price because the offers live on the variants.
Why does my markup disappear after a theme update?
Custom templates replace the schema snippet, an app rewrites the head, or the markup is injected by JavaScript. A raw fetch catches all three.
Do I need every recommended field?
Recommended fields are not hard requirements, but missing them costs eligibility for rich results and merchant listings. Fix the cheap ones first.
Where should hasMerchantReturnPolicy go?
On the Offer, not the Product. Placed on the Product it is ignored for merchant listings.

Related checks and guides