The 5-step schema-at-scale playbook

The 5-step schema-at-scale playbook
Structured data on 20,000 pages is a liability if it's wrong.

— Step 1 (SEO): Pick one schema type per template that matches the page's real content. Gate: marking up data not visible on the page → fail.
— Step 2 (Dev): Map every schema property to a real data field with a fallback. Gate: a null field must omit the property, never emit empty strings.
— Step 3 (Dev): Render JSON-LD server-side and escape it. Gate: a stray quote in entity names breaking the JSON → fail (validate parse on build).
— Step 4 (SEO): Validate a sample against the Rich Results test per template, not per page. Gate: any error-level issue → fix the template.
— Step 5 (Ops): Monitor the Enhancements report after launch. Gate: error spike → suspect a data edge case, trace to the field.

Guardrail: schema describes what's on the page, nothing more.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.