Entity Attributes and Properties
Session 1.6 · ~5 min read
A name alone does not make an entity. "PT Arsindo Perkasa" is a string. "PT Arsindo Perkasa, an industrial pump supplier founded in 1992, headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, with 50 employees and operations across Java" is the beginning of an entity. The difference is properties.
Properties are the facts associated with an entity. Each property adds specificity. Specificity adds confidence. Google uses properties to uniquely identify your entity, distinguish it from others, populate Knowledge Panels, and answer queries about you.
Core Properties for Organization Entities
Schema.org defines dozens of properties for the Organization type. Not all are equally important for entity recognition. Here are the ones that matter most, ranked by their impact on Google's entity confidence:
| Property | Schema.org Name | Example | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company name | name | PT Arsindo Perkasa | Critical |
| Legal name | legalName | PT Arsindo Perkasa | High |
| Website URL | url | https://ptarsindo.com | Critical |
| Logo | logo | https://ptarsindo.com/logo.png | High |
| Description | description | Industrial pump supplier for mining and water treatment | High |
| Founding date | foundingDate | 1992 | High |
| Founders | founder | Person entity | High |
| Address | address | PostalAddress with street, city, country | Critical |
| Phone | telephone | +62-21-1234567 | High |
| info@ptarsindo.com | Medium | ||
| Social profiles | sameAs | Array of profile URLs | Critical |
| Industry | industry (or knowsAbout) | Industrial Equipment | Medium |
| Number of employees | numberOfEmployees | 50-100 | Medium |
| Area served | areaServed | Indonesia | Medium |
| Parent organization | parentOrganization | Holding company entity | Medium |
Every missing property is a missing signal. A company with 5 properties is a vague entity. A company with 15 properties is a sharp, recognizable one.
Properties as Disambiguation Tools
Properties do more than describe your entity. They disambiguate it. If your company is called "Global Solutions," Google cannot tell you apart from the hundreds of other companies with that name. But "Global Solutions, founded in 2010, headquartered in Surabaya, Indonesia, specializing in water treatment systems, founded by Ahmad Hidayat" is unique.
The combination of properties creates a fingerprint. The more properties you provide, the more distinct your fingerprint becomes.
(name only)"] --> B["???
Which one?"] C["Global Solutions
+ Surabaya
+ Water Treatment
+ Founded 2010
+ Ahmad Hidayat"] --> D["Unique Entity
Disambiguated"] style A fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#c47a5a,color:#ede9e3 style B fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#c47a5a,color:#ede9e3 style C fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#6b8f71,color:#ede9e3 style D fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#6b8f71,color:#ede9e3
Properties Must Be Consistent
A property is only valuable if it is consistent across all platforms where your entity appears. Your founding date cannot be 1992 on your website and 1995 on your LinkedIn page. Your address cannot be "Jl. Sudirman 45" on your site and "Jalan Sudirman No. 45" on a directory.
Inconsistent properties create conflicting signals. Google cannot determine which is correct, so it discounts both. This is worse than having no property at all, because it introduces doubt about your entity's accuracy.
The Property Completeness Audit
You can audit your property completeness right now. For each property in the table above, answer three questions:
- Do I have this information defined? (Some companies have never formally documented their founding date or legal name.)
- Is it published on my website in structured data? (Having the information in prose text is not enough. It must be in JSON-LD schema.)
- Is the same value published consistently on other platforms? (GBP, directories, social profiles.)
If you answer "no" to any question for any property, that is a gap in your entity infrastructure.
The typical SMB has a name and URL but is weak on everything else. The entity-optimized business has near-complete property coverage. The gap is entirely addressable with structured data implementation.
Further Reading
- Schema.org: Organization Properties - Complete property reference for the Organization type
- Schema.org: Person Properties - Complete property reference for the Person type
- General Structured Data Guidelines - Google's policies on structured data implementation
Assignment
Create a spreadsheet with columns: Property, Your Current Value, Where It Is Published. Rows: company name, legal name, address, phone, email, founding date, founder name, logo URL, website URL, and 5 social profile URLs. Fill in every cell. Empty cells are missing entity signals. This spreadsheet becomes your master entity property document.