Guide
Manual Entity Audit Checklist
Validators find broken syntax. They cannot tell you whether the markup is true, whether the brand is licensed in the market a page targets, or whether five templates describe the same company five ways. That is what a manual entity audit is for.
Before you start
Agree on what the audit covers: which domains, which markets, which templates. Collect the facts the site should state, such as the brand name, the company named on the license, the logo file and the support contacts, from the site's own terms and contact pages and from regulators' public registers. That fact sheet is what you audit against.
The checklist
| Step | Question | Record |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Inventory | Which templates exist, and which page is a typical example of each? | Template name, sample URL |
| 2. Extract | What JSON-LD does each sample output, in the rendered page? | The markup, saved with the date |
| 3. Syntax | Does every block parse? | Errors with line numbers |
| 4. Truth | Does every value appear on the page, with the same meaning? | Values not visible or different |
| 5. Google requirements | Are required properties present for any feature the page targets? | Missing properties per type |
| 6. Identity | Do name, legalName, logo and @id match the fact sheet everywhere? | Each mismatch and where it occurs |
| 7. Links | Do publisher, author and isPartOf point at the right @id? | Broken or orphaned references |
| 8. Reviews | Is any rating self-serving, unsupported or undisclosed? | Rating blocks and their source |
| 9. Markets | Is any page marked up for a market where the product is not licensed? | Page, market, product |
| 10. Retired features | Is markup kept only for features Google no longer shows? | FAQ blocks, SearchAction |
Step notes
Extract from the rendered page
If the platform injects JSON-LD with JavaScript, the page source may not show it. Google reads markup that is in the DOM after rendering, so audit what a browser renders. A headless browser or the Rich Results Test with the URL input shows the rendered result.
The truth check
Google's guidelines say markup must not describe content readers cannot see, and must be "a true representation of the page content." Read the page and the markup side by side. Common findings on gambling sites: a rating in markup but not on the page, a stale logo, a datePublished that does not match the visible date, an author who no longer works there.
The market check
Gambling products are licensed market by market. A page for Australian readers should not present online casino games, because those are a prohibited service under the Interactive Gambling Act. A page for Ontario should only present brands registered there. Markup that presents a product to a market where it is not licensed is a compliance problem before it is an SEO problem.
Writing up findings
- Group findings by template, because fixes happen in templates.
- Rank them: untrue markup first, then broken identity, then missing recommended properties.
- For each finding, give the current value, the correct value and its source.
- Date the report and note which Google documentation version you checked against.
Our records explorer shows what such findings look like on illustrative data, and the entity map helps with step 7.
Questions
How often should an entity audit run?
After major template releases, after a rebrand or license change, and when Google changes the documentation for a type the site uses.
Can a crawler do this audit?
A crawler can extract markup and find syntax errors at scale. The truth, identity and market checks need a person who knows the facts.
What is the most common serious finding?
Markup that states something the page does not show, such as a rating or an author. Google's guidelines say such markup can lead to a manual action.
Sources
How SchemaReel chooses, reads and dates its sources is set out on the data sources page.
- Google Search Central, General structured data guidelines, last updated July 10, 2026.
- Google Search Central, Generate structured data with JavaScript, last updated December 10, 2025.
- Australian Government, Protecting Australians from illegal online gambling services, August 2017.