Has JSON-LD SportsTeam is a 0 / 1 flag for whether RankGear finds the SportsTeam type declared in a page’s raw HTML source. Important caveat: it pattern-matches the source text rather than validating a JSON-LD graph, so a matching string outside real structured data can still return 1.
| Factor ID | RG-SCJ-247 |
|---|---|
| Family | Structured data — JSON-LD |
| Measurement | Binary presence (0 / 1) |
| Measured zone | Raw rendered HTML |
What it measures
This factor reports whether RankGear finds an @type value of SportsTeam in the page’s raw source. SportsTeam markup describes an organized sports team as an entity — carrying its sport, athletes, coaches, league, venue, schedule, and official links in a machine-readable form. The factor is a simple present-or-absent signal: it tells you the type string was found, not whether the surrounding structured data is complete or valid.
How RankGear measures it
RankGear searches the raw HTML for the string "@type": "SportsTeam", allowing flexible whitespace around the tokens and optionally permitting a schema: prefix. Matching is case-insensitive, so capitalization differences in the type value do not affect detection. When the pattern is found the factor returns 1; otherwise it returns 0.
What RankGear looks for
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "SportsTeam",
"name": "Riverside Rovers",
"sport": "Soccer",
"coach": { "@type": "Person", "name": "..." },
"memberOf": { "@type": "SportsOrganization", "name": "..." }
}
</script>
# matched pattern (case-insensitive, flexible whitespace, optional schema: prefix):
# "@type": "SportsTeam" | "@type": "schema:SportsTeam"| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | The SportsTeam type string was found in the raw HTML source. |
| 0 | The type string was not found — the page does not appear to declare SportsTeam. |
How to optimize it
Use SportsTeam only for a genuine sports team, and only with accurate sport, athletes, coaches, league, venue, schedule, and official links. Ensure every property reflects content users can verify on the page. Because the detector matches source text rather than a validated graph, treat this factor as an observation of presence, not a target to game — a correct implementation is the goal, and the score simply reports whether the string is there.
Important considerations
- The detector pattern-matches source text instead of validating a JSON-LD graph.
- A matching string outside valid JSON-LD can still produce a 1 — presence of the string is not proof of correct structured data.
- Capitalization differences in the type value do not affect detection.
- Validate the complete structured data independently with a schema validator; do not rely on this flag alone.
- Structured data correlates with, and does not guarantee, ranking outcomes; it is a prioritization signal measured within a result set, not a cause of position.
Related factors
Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.