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SH008 – Category Tagging Validation

Overview

Ensures category information exists and is consistent across JSON-LD Product.category, breadcrumb, and DOM/meta.

Probability that AI systems use this signal: Crawlers and generative AI pipelines consume structured and visible page signals for training and inference. Assessment-specific signals (e.g. schema, canonicals, trust cues) affect how likely a page is indexed and surfaced. The probability that this assessment's signal influences AI behavior is high when the page is in a product or compliance context.

Impact on geo compliance: Passing this assessment supports geo compliance by ensuring machine-readable and visible content meet standards that reduce the risk of wrong locale, pricing, or trust in AI-generated answers. Failing can lead to non-compliant or misleading surfacing.

What We Check

  • **_extract_json_ld_category:** first Product in JSON-LD, category field (string).
  • **_extract_breadcrumb_category:** last li text in nav[aria-label*="breadcrumb" i] or .breadcrumb/.breadcrumbs.
  • **_extract_dom_category:** .category, .product-category, [class*="category"], meta[property="product:category"], meta[name="category"] (content or text).
  • **None found:** −60. **Inconsistency:** if multiple different categories and not _categories_are_compatible (one string contains another, case-insensitive): −30. **Format (JSON-LD category):** empty / len<3 / len>200: issues −20.

Pass / Fail and Score

  • **PASSED** if score >= 60.

How to Fix When It Fails

  • Add category in structured data, breadcrumbs, or page/meta; keep consistent; use hierarchical format where appropriate.

Common Issues

  • No category anywhere; conflicting category strings; invalid length.

Dependencies

None.

How to Verify

  • Compare Product.category, breadcrumb last item, and DOM/meta category.

Additional Resources

  • schema.org Product.category