HTML image map as SiteNavigationElement

Question

I’m planning to use an HTML image map as a schema.org SiteNavigationElement.

The idea is to use the image as a venue map and as a visual aid to find local business in my area.

The code was validated through the Google Structured Data Testing Tool and everything seems to be ok.

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/SiteNavigationElement" >
  <div itemprop="name">the name</div>
  <div itemprop="description">the description</div>
  <img itemprop="image" src="map.jpg" usemap="#map_tag"/>
  <map name="#map_tag">
    <area itemprop="url" coords="1, 2, 3, 4" href="link1.php" shape="rect" alt="alt_text1"/>
    <area itemprop="url" coords="5, 5, 7, 8" href="link2.php" shape="rect" alt="alt_text2"/>
  </map>
</div>

Is this a valid use for SiteNavigationElement?

Answer 1

No, the url property of SiteNavigationElement is for the URI of the navigation (it’s unlikely to have one), not for the URLs of the links the navigation contains. See my answer to "What is the correct use of schema.org SiteNavigationElement?".

Apart from that, it seems to be appropriate. However (to be sure, as you are only using example text), the name should give the name (and the description the description) of the navigation itself, not of the page etc.

(Note that it’s typically not very useful to use these WebPageElement types to begin with. It gets from time to time discussed to deprecate them in Schema.org. I’d only use them in very specific/rare cases.)