ownerOf

ownerOf · Optional

Appears in

• Organization

What is it?

ownerOf is the inverse of owns. Where owns is declared on the owning entity to list things it possesses, ownerOf would be declared on the owned thing to point back to its owner. The field has limited adoption in practice and the schema.org URL for this property returns a 404, suggesting it may have been deprecated or merged into the broader owns relationship.

Given the 404 status on schema.org/ownerOf, implementations should treat this field as deprecated. Use owns on the owning organization and ownerOf should not be relied upon as a supported property for current structured data implementations.

Why this matters for AEO

AI answer engines construct ownership graphs primarily from owns, subOrganization, and parentOrganization declarations. The ownerOf inverse relationship, if it were reliably supported, would allow an owned entity to declare its owner without requiring the owner's page to list it.

In practice, the bidirectional ownership relationship is better expressed by combining owns on the parent with parentOrganization or subOrganization declarations on the child. This approach is supported by both schema.org and Google's structured data documentation.

What the specs say

Schema.org: The ownerOf property appears to have been deprecated or merged. The schema.org URL https://schema.org/ownerOf returns a 404 error. This property is not reliably part of the current schema.org vocabulary.

Google: Not mentioned in Google's structured data documentation for Organization. No documented support for this property in any rich result or Knowledge Panel context. [Source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/organization]

How to find your value

Do not use ownerOf in new implementations. Instead, express ownership relationships using:

• owns on the owning organization's structured data
• parentOrganization on the owned organization's structured data
• subOrganization on the parent's structured data

These three fields together provide a complete, supported ownership graph.

Format and code

Since ownerOf is effectively deprecated, the recommended alternative pattern is shown below.

Recommended alternative: owns + parentOrganization

On the parent organization's page:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Berkshire Hathaway",
  "url": "https://www.berkshirehathaway.com",
  "owns": [
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "GEICO",
      "url": "https://www.geico.com"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "BNSF Railway",
      "url": "https://www.bnsf.com"
    }
  ]
}

On the owned organization's page:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "GEICO",
  "url": "https://www.geico.com",
  "parentOrganization": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Berkshire Hathaway",
    "url": "https://www.berkshirehathaway.com",
    "sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway"
  }
}

If ownerOf were used (not recommended)

For completeness, if this field were valid, its structure would follow the pattern of inverse properties in schema.org:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Instagram",
  "url": "https://www.instagram.com",
  "ownerOf": {
    "@type": "Thing",
    "name": "Some owned asset"
  }
}

This pattern is not recommended due to the deprecated status of the property.

Webflow implementation

Static pages

Do not implement ownerOf in custom code blocks. Use owns on the parent organization page and parentOrganization on the child organization page instead.

CMS template pages

The same applies to CMS-driven organization pages. Build ownership relationships using supported properties.

In Schema HQ

The ownerOf field does not expose ownerOf in its organization schema editor due to its deprecated status. Use the owns field on the parent organization schema and parentOrganization on subsidiary schemas.

Related fields

• owns
• parentOrganization
• subOrganization
• brand

FAQ

Why does schema.org/ownerOf return a 404?

Schema.org occasionally deprecates properties or merges them into other terms. The ownerOf property appears to have been removed or redirected. Relying on a 404 URL as a type declaration in JSON-LD is invalid and will fail validation.

How do I express that an asset belongs to an organization without ownerOf?

Use owns on the organization's structured data to list its assets, and use parentOrganization on any owned organization that has its own page. This bidirectional pattern is fully supported and recommended.

Does this affect existing structured data that uses ownerOf?

Validators will flag ownerOf as an unrecognized property and may return warnings or errors. Existing implementations should be updated to use the alternative patterns described above.