WebSite

The WebSite type connects the digital property to its real-world owner through the publisher property. This is critical for establishing E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals.

• publisher: Expects an Organization or Person type.
• author: Can define the default author for the entire site, typically overridden at the WebPage or Article level.
• This linkage helps AI engines disambiguate the entity responsible for the content.

In modern JSON-LD implementation, the WebSite rarely stands alone. It acts as the root node in an @graph array, connecting the Organization, WebPage, and BreadcrumbList.

• Use the @graph keyword to define multiple top-level entities in a single script block.
• The WebSite's @id is referenced by WebPage's isPartOf property.
• This creates a clean, non-redundant knowledge graph that parsers can traverse efficiently.

The inLanguage property specifies the primary language of the website's content using IETF BCP 47 language tags. This is essential for multilingual sites and AI-driven localization.

• Example: en-US for American English, de-DE for German.
• Combine with Speakable markup on specific pages to optimize for voice assistants.
• Proper language declaration prevents AI models from misinterpreting or mistranslating content.

To solidify entity reconciliation, the WebSite type supports alternateName and sameAs properties.

• alternateName: Acronyms or common abbreviations (e.g., NYT for The New York Times).
• sameAs: An array of canonical URLs pointing to the site's entries in external knowledge bases like Wikidata, Wikipedia, or official social media profiles.
• This explicit alignment reduces the risk of AI models confusing your brand with a similarly named entity.