Schema.org Type Reference

Overview

The Schema.org Type Reference is a searchable index of the most-used schema.org types — Thing, CreativeWork, Article, Product, Person, Organization, LocalBusiness, Event, Recipe, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList — each showing its parent type in the hierarchy and a one-line description of when to use it.

Useful for SEO practitioners and developers learning how to pick the right schema.org type for a page or how to find the parent of a schema.org type. Reach for it when building JSON-LD or Microdata structured data and you need to confirm a type's lineage (does Product inherit from Thing? Does LocalBusiness extend Organization?).

How it works

Schema.org defines a single-inheritance type hierarchy rooted at Thing. Every type lists its supertype and inherits all of that supertype's properties. The reference shows each type's direct parent so you can trace lineage upward to find inherited properties (a Product is a kind of Thing, so it inherits name, description, url, image).

The list focuses on types Google and other major engines actually use to surface rich results — a small subset of the full vocabulary. The full schema.org website lists hundreds of types, but most never produce a rich-result feature.

Examples

• Searching Article returns parent CreativeWork, with subtypes BlogPosting, NewsArticle, TechArticle.
• LocalBusiness shows parent Organization with the address, geo, openingHours properties inherited.
• Recipe extends CreativeWork and lists the rich-result properties recipeIngredient, recipeInstructions, nutrition.
• FAQPage extends WebPage and requires mainEntity as a list of Question entities.

FAQ

How do I find every property of a type?

Walk up the hierarchy. A Product inherits everything from Thing plus its own additions. The reference shows direct properties; consult schema.org directly for the full property list.

Are all schema.org types used by Google?

No — only a subset triggers rich results in search. The reference focuses on those, plus the structural types you typically need to nest (Person, Organization, PostalAddress, Offer).

What's the difference between Article and BlogPosting?

BlogPosting is a subtype of Article. Use BlogPosting for blog posts specifically; use Article when the content is editorial but not blog-style.

Can I create custom types?

You can, by extending an existing schema.org type via JSON-LD's @type mechanism, but search engines only recognise standard schema.org types for rich results. Custom types are visible only to other linked-data consumers.

Try Schema.org Type Reference