Schema.Org Linked Open Data

Starting with our Schema App WordPress Plugin v1.6 we have added an option to enabled Linked Data. Linked data is a new way of publishing your web content to be directly accessible by machines. This means, for example, that if you are a Manufacturer of Refrigerators then you can publish your product data directly on your website. This provides your retailers or third integrators direct access to your product specifications in a format that is 100% machine readable and standards based. The benefit of which is lower cost to integrate with partners and an extended reach across enterprise value chain.

Linked Data is a method of publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful through semantic queries. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP, RDF and URIs, but rather than using them to serve web pages for human readers, it extends them to share information in a way that can be read automatically by computers. This enables data from different sources to be connected and queried.

This plugin feature repurposes the schema.org structured data for Linked Data for new uses of your data. Given that the broad usage of schema.org data on the web, its relatively unambiguous meaning of data types and properties provides an easily consumable data set.

Across the web today, there are many examples of Linked Open Data. Below is an image showing Linked Open Data sets on the web.

Each bubble represents its own Linked Data Set, colors representing domains of interest. Notably, Wikidata is not captured in this 2014 image but is a today among the most important nodes.

How To Use It

From the WordPress Admin, you will want to go to Settings menu, then Schema App. In the Schema App Settings tab, select the checkbox for Linked Open Data

Then, your schema.org data is available directly using two methods.

1. Accepts Header
The standard way of requesting Linked Open data is an HTTP request to the URI of the individual in question, with the Accept header on the request “application/json”. If there is no Accept header, it is assumed to be text/html, and the standard profile page is returned. If you’re creating integrations, use this well accepted method.

2. Parameter ?format=application/ld+json
A HTTP GET request to the URI of that includes a format parameter that is set to "?format=application/ld+json”. 

For example, https://www.schemaapp.com/?format=application/ld+json will output the JSON-LD for Schema App. 

If you want our product information: https://www.schemaapp.com/product-pricing/?format=application/ld+json. 

For this article: https://www.schemaapp.com/features/schema-org-open-linked-data/?format=application/ld+json. 

This method of retrieving data provides a way for you to access the data from the browser.

For both, the Response MIME type will be “application/json”.

If you are currently or planning to use linked data with schema.org, leave us a note at the bottom and tell us where to find that data and what’s the nature of the content (e.g. products, places, people, events, etc).

Additional Resources

https://www.w3.org/TR/ldp/ – this is the W3C Recommendations for the Linked Data Platform. This defines a set of rules for HTTP operations on web resources, some based on RDF, to provide an architecture for read-write Linked Data on the web.

http://linkeddata.org/ – This site provides a home for, or pointers to, resources from across the Linked Data community.

http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/ – A Foundational Book on the topic of Linked Data