Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content; for example, on a recipe page, what are the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the calories, and so on.

Within Google Search Console, you can check the “Enhancements” section to see if Google has detected and processed your structured data. Schema.org Validator allows you to input a URL and check for Schema Markup. It provides a detailed report of the structured data found on your webpage.

Use structured data when it represents the main content, versus only part of it. Make all the schema markup like the cooking times, visible to the user.

Google uses structured data to understand the content on the page and show that content in a richer appearance in search results, which is called a rich result.