HTML
Nested itemtype
Use nested types like Person and Organization.
Nested types
Sometimes a property is not just text but another structured-data piece. An author is a person; a publisher is an organization. For these you use nested types.
You add itemscope and itemtype to the author span, then open an inner span with itemprop="name" for the name:
<span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person">
<span itemprop="name">Alex Carter</span>
</span>
Search engines then read the author's type and name together.
Person and Organization
The two most common nested types are Person and Organization. The first marks individuals, the second marks organizations.
In an article the author is usually a Person, the publisher an Organization. Both use a nested name property to carry the real name.
The outer property (e.g. author) carries itemprop, while the inner element opens a new scope with both itemscope and itemtype.
Exercise Turn the author span into a nested Person
Take the article from the previous step. Convert the <span itemprop="author"> element into a nested Person structure.
Add itemscope and itemtype="https://schema.org/Person" to the outer span. Place a new <span itemprop="name">Alex Carter</span> inside it and remove the plain text from the outer span.
Show example solution
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Education in the AI Era</title>
</head>
<body>
<article itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Article" itemid="/articles/education-in-the-ai-era">
<h1 itemprop="headline">Education in the AI Era</h1>
<p>Published: <time itemprop="datePublished">2026-03-15</time></p>
<p>Author: <span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="name">Alex Carter</span></span></p>
<p>AI is reshaping the relationship between teacher and student in classrooms.</p>
</article>
</body>
</html>
Test yourself
-
Which nested type is used for the author?
<span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="...">
- https://schema.org/Article
- https://schema.org/Organization
- https://schema.org/Person
- https://schema.org/WebPage
Show answer
https://schema.org/Person — Correct. The author is a person, so the Person type is used.
-
Complete the Person type URL
<span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="____"><span itemprop="name">Alex</span></span>
Show answer
<span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="name">Alex</span></span>
-
Match each type with the entity it marks
- Person
- Individual/author
- Organization
- Org/publisher
- Article
- News/article
- WebPage
- Generic page
Next lesson: Project final - Structured data
