Structured data populates name, description, url, and contact or location property

Google's Rich Results Test rejects schema-org LocalBusiness markup that omits required fields, stripping star ratings and address panels from search results. Beyond SEO, empty or placeholder fields in name, description, url, or address degrade the directory's data integrity: aggregators and AI crawlers that consume your structured data surface incomplete records downstream. A listing that renders "telephone": "" or "description": "TBD" in its JSON-LD signals untrustworthiness to both search engines and users who encounter the raw data via the schema-org PostalAddress or GeoCoordinates properties.

Guard against empty fields at JSON-LD construction time, not at the database layer. Use || undefined to omit absent optional fields rather than passing empty strings, which still fail validation.

// lib/listing-schema.ts
export function buildListingSchema(listing: Listing) {
  return {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "LocalBusiness",
    "name": listing.name,
    "description": listing.description,
    "url": listing.publicUrl,
    "telephone": listing.phone || undefined,
    "email": listing.email || undefined,
    "address": listing.address ? {
      "@type": "PostalAddress",
      "streetAddress": listing.address.street,
      "addressLocality": listing.address.city
    } : undefined,
    "geo": listing.latitude && listing.longitude ? {
      "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
      "latitude": listing.latitude,
      "longitude": listing.longitude
    } : undefined
  };
}

Throw a validation error during listing creation if name, description, or url are absent — reject bad data at write time.