Google recently made a technical change to how it reads JSON-LD structured data. It is the kind of update most website owners will never see, but it could affect how Google interprets important information on a website and may impact AI Visibility.
The short version: Google is becoming less forgiving of improperly formatted structured data.
For organizations that rely on search visibility, this is worth checking. To be clear, this is not a new ranking algorithm. It is a reminder that the technical details behind a website matter.
First, what is JSON-LD?
JSON-LD is a common format for adding structured data to a website. Structured data gives search engines additional context about what a page and its content represent.
For example, it can identify:
- An organization and its official name
- A service or product
- An article and its author
- An event, job opening, location, or frequently asked question
- Pricing, availability, ratings, and other details
This information supports Google’s understanding of a website and, when the content and markup meet Google’s requirements, may make pages eligible for enhanced search features.
Most visitors never see JSON-LD because it sits in the code. But machines speak code and search engines absolutely see this code.
What did Google change?
On August 21, 2026, Google Search Central announced that it had changed its JSON-LD extraction process to align more closely with established JSON standards.
Google now applies only one pass of HTML unescaping. In plain language, Google will no longer keep correcting certain characters that have been encoded more than once.
One example is an ampersand. In properly generated JSON-LD, an ampersand may appear as the character & or as a valid Unicode escape. But a website’s CMS, theme, plugin, or custom code can sometimes encode the character once and then encode it again when placing the data into the page. This produces a double-escaped entity such as &.
Google’s parser previously may have unrolled that encoding until it reached the intended character. You should no longer rely on that behavior.
Why does this matter?
If JSON-LD contains double-escaped characters, Google may retain unintended entity text instead of reading the intended value. That can create a mismatch between what users see on the page and what the structured data communicates to Google.
Depending on the affected property and implementation, the result could include:
- Incorrectly interpreted names, descriptions, or other values
- Structured data warnings or errors
- Conflicts between visible content and structured data
- Google disregarding affected properties
- Reduced eligibility for certain rich-result features
This does not mean every website using JSON-LD has a problem. It also does not mean an affected site will automatically lose rankings or search visibility. The impact depends on whether double escaping is present, which information is affected, and whether the markup remains valid.
Still, this is not something to ignore.
“This update is a good example of why technical SEO still matters as search becomes more AI-driven,” said Hunter Waring, an SEO expert at ArtForm. “The code may be invisible to visitors, but it is not invisible to the systems interpreting the site. Clean, accurate structured data gives those systems clearer signals about an organization and its content.”
Which websites should be reviewed?
Any website using JSON-LD should be checked, but the update deserves particular attention when structured data is:
- Generated by a CMS, theme, SEO plugin, or third-party application
- Built from fields that may already contain HTML formatting
- Added or modified through a tag-management platform
- Produced through custom templates or JavaScript
- Pulled from APIs, product feeds, or other external data sources
- Used across large groups of pages through a shared template
The underlying problem may not appear on every page. For example, the markup could work correctly until a business name, service title, or description contains an ampersand, quotation mark, symbol, or other special character.
That is why reviewing one page is rarely enough.
What should you do?
Start with an audit of representative page types and the systems that generate their structured data. This may include the homepage, service or product pages, articles, author pages, location pages, events, job postings, and other templates.
The review should examine both the original page source and the rendered code when JavaScript or plugins may alter the markup. It should also confirm that:
- The JSON-LD parses as valid JSON
- Values do not contain unresolved or double-escaped entities
- Structured data accurately matches the visible page content
- Key page templates are tested, not just individual URLs
- Applicable pages pass Google’s structured data testing tools
The best correction is usually made at the source of the problem. Fixing a CMS template, plugin configuration, data feed, or encoding function is more reliable than replacing individual characters page by page.
You should not perform a blanket replacement of every ampersand or HTML entity without understanding how the structured data is generated. That approach can introduce new errors. Clean JSON-LD requires a clean, standards-compliant generation process.
How ArtForm is responding
ArtForm has added Google’s parser change to our technical SEO and structured data review standards. We are evaluating client implementations for double-escaped entities, incorrect encoding, content mismatches, and template-level risks.
When we identify an issue, we will determine where it originates and provide specific recommendations for correcting the process. When no issue is present, we will document that too. Not every Google announcement needs to become a client development task.
That judgment matters.
Technical SEO is not a one-time checklist. Search platforms continue to refine how they crawl, process, and interpret website information. Strong SEO programs monitor those changes, assess the real impact, and respond based on evidence.
This update may be highly technical. The goal is simple: make it easy for Google to understand the right information about your organization.
If ArtForm manages your SEO, we are already incorporating this change into our review process. If you would like us to evaluate your website’s structured data, get in touch.