Free entity SEO learning
An entity is the thing being described
What an entity is
An entity can be a person, organization, place, product or concept. Its name is a label. A useful description separates identity, type, attributes and relationships so that readers can tell what the page means.
Here, the term refers to a thing described on a website or in a model of its facts. This lesson covers identity and meaning. It does not explain business registration, database administration or fictional creatures.
Separate identity, name and type
A company may have a registered name, a trading name and an abbreviation. Some organizations can also share similar names. A keyword is a word or phrase used in search or analysis; it may refer to an entity, a property, a question or a task. Matching a phrase does not establish the identity of the thing it describes.
A type describes a category such as Person, Organization or Place. An entity is a particular thing being discussed. Two organizations can share a type without sharing an identity. The same entity may also fit more than one appropriate type, but every type assignment should match supported facts.
Identity
- Question
- Which particular thing are we describing?
- Fictional example
- The organization recorded locally as AW01.
Name
- Question
- Which words label that thing?
- Fictional example
- Alder Workshop is the organization’s name in this lesson.
Type
- Question
- What kind of thing is it?
- Fictional example
- Organization describes its category; it is not the organization’s identity.
Distinguish an entity from a query
“Alder Workshop” names the fictional company. “Alder Workshop founder” asks about a relationship. “Book bicycle maintenance” expresses a task. Those phrases need different answers even when they refer to connected things. A shared word does not settle which company, person or service is intended.
Describe the subject first, then use the wording readers need. The entities and keywords comparison examines the terminology in more detail.
Read attributes and relationships as statements
An attribute describes a property of an entity, such as its name or a measured dimension. A relationship connects it to another entity, such as an organization’s founder. The entry can be a literal such as text or a number, or a reference to another identified thing.
A statement needs a clear subject, relation and entry. “The company was founded by the person” differs from “the person was founded by the company.” Direction changes meaning. Units, dates and conditions can also be necessary to interpret an entry.
In “Alder Workshop has founder Mira Lane,” the organization is the subject, the founder relationship connects the records, and Mira Lane is the related person. A measured width uses a number and unit instead. The entity attributes and predicates lesson explains these entry forms.
Keep the company, founder, service and place separate
Use four separate records for this invented example. Alder Workshop is an organization. Mira Lane is a person. Bicycle maintenance is the service being described. Brookhaven is a place. These names and relationships are fictional teaching material.
The company’s service page can explain the service and its confirmed availability. A founder biography can describe the person. A location record describes the place. Keeping separate records prevents a company’s address, a person’s biography and a service condition from becoming interchangeable facts.
Alder Workshop
- Type or role
- Organization
- Example statement
- Has founder Mira Lane
Mira Lane
- Type or role
- Person
- Example statement
- Founded Alder Workshop
Bicycle maintenance
- Type or role
- Service
- Example statement
- Provided by Alder Workshop
Brookhaven
- Type or role
- Place
- Example statement
- Named as the service location in this example
Give the record a stable identity and evidence
Give each record a stable internal identifier and keep evidence with each material statement. A website address, registration record or official profile may help distinguish an organization, depending on the claim and context. A matching logo or similar name alone is weak evidence of identity.
Use an internal label such as AW01 to keep the same record traceable through edits. The label is your record reference; it is not proof of a legal registration or a search provider’s identifier. Keep the source and its supported claim together. A source that confirms a trading name may say nothing about service availability.
If two records may describe the same organization, distinguish similar entity names before moving facts between them. Use the evidence conflict method when observations disagree, and separate entity IDs from page nodes.
Handle changes without guessing a new identity
Do not merge a person, their employer and the services they perform into one entity. A change of employer does not create a new person, and a business can change a trading name without necessarily becoming a different organization. Verify the specific change rather than guessing from wording.
Suppose the fictional AW01 record later uses “Alder Cycle Workshop.” Keep AW01 only if the teaching source confirms that this is a changed name for the same organization. If a separately established subsidiary is described, give it a separate record and record the relationship. A person’s change of employer updates an employment claim; it does not turn the person into a new person.
Keep the earlier name, date and reason for the decision so another editor can review it. The names, aliases and abbreviations lesson covers that continuing record.
Use the copyable entity record
Copy it into a document to fill it in; it does not save, submit or export information on this page.
Identity and type
- What to record
- Which thing this record describes and its supported category
Reader task
- What to record
- The question this page must answer about the entity
Evidence state
- What to record
- Confirmed, uncertain or missing evidence
Name and aliases
- What to record
- Supported names; do not merge similar names without evidence
Query context
- What to record
- The situation that makes a reader seek this entity
Attributes
- What to record
- Facts with units, dates and applicable conditions
Relationships
- What to record
- Named related entities and the direction of each relation
Evidence
- What to record
- Document, responsible owner, version and confirmation date
The following completed record is entirely fictional. Its local IDs and example source references belong to this teaching exercise; they identify no operating business.
Completed Alder Workshop record
- Identity and type
- AW01; Alder Workshop; Organization.
- Reader task
- Identify the company, its founder and the service described in the example.
- Evidence state
- Confirmed within the invented exercise only. Real identity, availability and address are unverified.
- Name and aliases
- Alder Workshop. No alternate name has been confirmed in this version.
- Query context
- A reader asks which organization the bicycle service description concerns.
- Attributes
- Name: Alder Workshop. No real address, price or opening time is supplied.
- Relationships
- AW01 has founder ML01, Mira Lane. Bicycle maintenance SV01 is provided by AW01. Brookhaven PL01 is the named example service location.
- Evidence
- Fictional teaching record AW-A, version A, reviewed for this exercise on 24 October 2026. It supplies no real business evidence.
Describe the entity clearly on a page
Introduce the main thing early and explain what the reader needs to know about it. Add relevant attributes and relationships close to the claims they qualify. Link to a related page when it provides a useful next explanation, rather than repeating every related noun.
Use main and supporting entities to choose which facts this page needs. The founder can have a biography elsewhere while the company page keeps the relationship required to identify the organization.
Keep model validity separate from truth and search outcomes
Schema.org supplies types and properties, while RDF describes statements using subjects, predicates and objects. These are useful modeling references. A vocabulary selection does not verify a claim, guarantee a knowledge panel or prove how a search engine represents the entity internally.
A statement can use a documented property and still contain an unsupported fact. Check the identity and evidence before examining markup. Choose another task from the graphs, taxonomies and ontologies lesson or the entity learning overview.
Sources and next steps
Read the semantic SEO learning hub and the entity SEO overview for the surrounding topics.
Official references: Schema.org data model, RDF concepts. Examples on this page are illustrative, not measured customer results.
