Schema sameAs Quality
Schema.org defines sameAs as the “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item’s identity”, for example a Wikipedia page, a Wikidata entry or the official website (schema.org). Google’s Organization markup accepts several sameAs URLs, such as social media or review-site profiles (Google). More links are not always better.
Last reviewed: 2026-11-10
What To Expect
sameAsis for identity and disambiguation. We found no study showing that it raises AI citations.- One 2026 study found structured data looked effective only when comparing different websites, not pages within one site (2610.15033).
- Google says no special structured data is needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and markup must match what’s visible on the page (Google).
Prioritize
- Official and controlled profiles.
- Profiles that are populated, crawlable and consistent with the entity home.
- Profiles that link back to the canonical site or repeat the same core facts.
- Knowledge graph identifiers such as Wikidata, when the item is accurate and well sourced.
- Profiles that prove the entity’s work, such as GitHub, Hugging Face, package registries, author pages or publication profiles.
Avoid
- Empty profiles created only for a backlink.
- Unclaimed directory pages with wrong facts.
- Duplicate or abandoned handles.
- Directories that don’t help disambiguation.
- Adding every profile you can find just to raise the count.
Suggested Tiers
These tiers are a judgment call, not a measured ranking.
| Tier | Examples | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Entity home, Wikidata, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, GitHub, ORCID, Crunchbase | Strong identity and disambiguation signals |
| Tier 2 | Medium, Substack, Hugging Face, Product Hunt, Muck Rack, Behance, Dribbble, Stack Overflow | Useful when populated and relevant to the entity |
| Tier 3 | Small directories, social mirrors, inactive profiles | Include only when accurate, maintained and cross-linked |
Review sameAs links from time to time and remove stale or contradictory profiles.