Duplicate JSON-LD scripts in head

Question

I have to inject multiple script elements for JSON-LD data into the head of my application, all pertaining to the same @type. This is due to pulling in different fields from different data source.

Will this duplication cause any problems?

<script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@type": "Organisation",
        "name": "John Smith"
    }
</script>

<script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@type": "Organisation",
        "city": "London"
    }
</script>

I'm hoping this will be translated by Google as simply:

<script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@type": "Organisation",
        "name": "John Smith",
        "city": "London"
    }
</script>

Is that right?

Answer 1

Consumers can’t/shouldn’t assume that these JSON objects describe the same thing. (Think of a web page with information about many different organizations: it would of course be wrong to assume that they are the same organization.)

JSON-LD allows you to specify that the things described in different objects are identical: give them the same @id value.

@id takes an IRI which acts as identifier (it’s useful to provide them for many reasons).

See Node Identifiers in the JSON-LD spec.

So it could look like this (using Schema.org instead of your custom vocabulary):

<script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@context": "http://schema.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "@id": "/organizations/42#this",
        "name": "ACME"
    }
</script>

<script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@context": "http://schema.org",
        "@type": "Organization",
        "@id": "/organizations/42#this",
        "description": "…"
    }
</script>

(The relative URL /organizations/42#this would represent the organization itself. It’s best practice then to provide this JSON-LD as well your information about the organization under /organizations/42.)