Do your step-by-step guides describe themselves to AI as procedures?
Confirms instructional pages emit HowTo structured data so AI can present steps cleanly.
What this signal tests
We check whether your step-by-step instructional pages (how-to guides, tutorials, set-up instructions, repair guides) publish HowTo structured data. The markup includes the name of the procedure and an ordered list of steps, each with its own text, and optionally images, tools, supplies, and total time required.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
Google deprecated the HowTo rich result in September 2023, but the markup is still actively used by AI tools that ingest procedural content into their knowledge bases. When ChatGPT or Perplexity answer a how do I question, they often quote step-by-step content lifted from HowTo markup because the steps are pre-structured and easy to cite cleanly. The weight on this signal is lower than for FAQPage or Article because the rich result is gone and only a subset of AI tools currently lean on HowTo. But the cost of adding it is low and the upside grows as AI assistants gain agentic capabilities (an AI that helps you fix a leaking tap needs structured step data, not paragraphs of prose). It is worth doing on genuine procedural content and not worth forcing on content that is not actually procedural.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| Valid HowTo with >=2 steps. |
How we test it
We crawl pages that read as step-by-step procedures (typically titled with how to or step by step in their headings) and look for HowTo structured data. We confirm the type is HowTo, the name is set, and the step field is an array of at least two HowToStep objects each with text. Bonus fields like image per step, tool, supply, and totalTime improve quality but are not required.
Show technical detection method
@type HowTo with name and >=2 HowToStep entries.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Identify which of your content templates produce genuinely step-by-step content. Tutorials, repair guides, recipes (use Recipe instead), and assembly instructions are the obvious cases.
- Add HowTo JSON-LD to those templates, with the name of the procedure and a step array. Each step should be @type HowToStep with at least the text of the step.
- Include images per step where available. AI tools that present step-by-step answers visually rely on per-step images, and pages with them are preferred sources.
- Add optional but valuable fields: tool (list of tools required), supply (list of supplies), totalTime in ISO 8601 duration format (such as PT30M for 30 minutes), and estimatedCost.
- Do not force HowTo onto editorial content that is not genuinely procedural. Misuse degrades trust in your structured data overall and AI tools will downweight your other markup as a result.
- Validate one URL in the Schema.org validator (Google Rich Results Test no longer has a HowTo test since deprecation).
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | low |
| Category | Structured Data |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
Is HowTo schema still worth doing now that Google removed the rich result?
For genuine step-by-step content, yes. The rich result is gone but the markup is still consumed by AI assistants for direct-answer extraction and by emerging agentic tools that follow procedures. The ROI shifted from search snippets to AI citations. Where the content is genuinely procedural, the work is small and the upside meaningful.
Should I use HowTo or Recipe for cooking content?
Recipe. It is a specialised subtype of HowTo with additional fields for ingredients, nutrition, and yield. Recipe also has the strongest current AI support of any procedural schema because cooking assistants are a major AI use case. Use Recipe for food content and HowTo for everything else procedural.
How granular should my steps be?
Each step should be one clear action a user can take and verify before moving on. Combining multiple actions into a single step makes the markup less useful for AI presentation. Splitting one action into multiple steps creates noise. Aim for the level of granularity a confused beginner would need to follow the procedure.
Run your own scan
Run a free scan and see how your site grades across all 155 AI-readiness signals.