Microdata, for example with the use of schema.org, is a great way for search engines to better understand what your webpage is all about.

In the ‘Getting started with schema.org using Microdata‘, the creators/sponsors of schema.org (Google, Inc., Yahoo, Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Yandex) do a great job explaining why it matters to introduce schema.org markup to your own web projects.

After following their guide and implementing the necessary code, it is time to validate your schema.org markup to see if everything was implemented the right way and the search engines successfully recognize it. This is crucial, because missing or incorrect microdata can confuse search engines like Google, which can ultimately lead to bad SEO practices and thus lower rankings.

There are various tools available to check if your microdata is valid and can be successfully read by all the major search engines, including Bing, Google, Yandex and Yahoo. It should be noted that the scope of this blogpost is schema.org markup, however, most of the listed tools also are able to understand and report on data retrieved from other markup languages such as Microformats, HTML Microdata, RDAa (“Rich Structured Data Markup for Web Documents”) and Open Graph.

Google Developers’ Structured Data Testing Tool

Google uses structured data markup for these two features (via Google Developers):

• Enhanced Presentation in Search Results: By including basic structured data appropriate to your content, your site can enhance its search results with Rich Snippets, Breadcrumbs, or a Sitelinks Search Box.
• Answers from the Knowledge Graph: If you’re the authority for certain content, Google can treat the structured data on your site as factual and import it into the Knowledge Graph, where it can power prominent answers in Search and across Google properties. Features are available for authoritative data about organizations, events, movie reviews, and music/video play actions.

Fill in your webpage’s URL or paste the HTML code and let the structured data testing tool do the work. Example: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/?url=https://vanhoutte.be

This tools is very comprehensive. If Google finds an error, it will warn you accordingly, such as:

• Node is empty. Double check that this is desired and consider removing.
• Warning: Missing required field “updated”.
• Warning: Missing required hCard “author”.
• Node is empty. Double check that this is desired and consider removing.

Microsoft’s Bing Markup Validator

As part of Microsoft Bing’s webmaster tools, Bing has its own markup validator.

Verify the markup that you have added to your pages with Markup Validator. Get an on-demand report that shows the markup we’ve discovered, including HTML Microdata, Microformats, RDFa, Schema.org, and OpenGraph. To get started simply sign in or sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools.

Once logged in, you will be redirected to the Markup Validator:

This feature allows you to enter a URL to have it scanned for the inclusion of a markup language. This tool will display an error when the markup code is incorrect or does not appear on the page you have entered to scan. If the installed code is correct, we will display the code as it appears in the page code.

It should be noted that the Bing Markup Validator also supports for example Open Graph markup.