JSON-LD vs Microdata: the three cases where Microdata still wins

JSON-LD vs Microdata: the three cases where Microdata still wins
Google has recommended JSON-LD for years and it's the right default — but 'always JSON-LD' is lazy advice. Microdata and RDFa still earn their keep in narrow spots.
— User-generated content: when commenters or product reviewers inject text, inline Microdata on the rendered HTML can't drift out of sync with a hand-built JSON-LD block the way a templated script can
— Heavily client-rendered pages where you can't guarantee the JSON-LD hydrates before crawl
— Email markup, where Gmail historically accepted Microdata/RDFa paths some teams trust more
What it means for you: default to JSON-LD for 95% of pages — it decouples markup from layout and survives redesigns. But if your structured data keeps going stale because content and script live in different templates, inline Microdata is the sync-proof move. Watch this: AI crawlers parse both fine, so the choice is now about maintainability, not visibility.