AI search engines need to know that your website, your Google Business Profile, your Instagram, and your Yelp listing are all the same business. Without sameAs markup, they have to work that out for themselves, and they don't always manage it. sameAs is a single Schema.org property that states the connection outright, and most local sites leave it out.
The Identity Problem
When you have a storefront in Crown Heights, a GBP listing, and a website, you've created three digital profiles. An AI engine crawling the web sees them independently. It doesn't automatically assume the "Example Optical" on your site is the same as the "Example Optical" on Google Maps. Engines have to infer the link from matching names, addresses and phone numbers. When those don't match exactly, they can treat your profiles as separate entities and split what they know about you across them.
sameAs is a property that lives in your Schema.org markup and points outward. It says: "This business also exists here, and here, and here." You add it once to your site's LocalBusiness or Organization schema, and you're telling every engine that indexes you: these profiles are one entity.
How SameAs Works in Markup
sameAs is an array of URLs. Add it to your LocalBusiness schema like this:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Example Optical",
"url": "https://exampleoptical.com",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.google.com/maps/place/example-optical",
"https://www.instagram.com/exampleoptical",
"https://www.yelp.com/biz/example-optical-brooklyn"
]
}
Each URL in the array tells the engine: this business also exists at this address. The engine uses these connections to stitch your profiles together into a single identity graph. When one profile gets a citation, the engine understands it's citing the same business that appears on your site.
Where Your Profiles Actually Live
Before you write markup, audit your actual presence. Most local businesses in Brooklyn have:
- Your website
- Google Business Profile
- Instagram or Facebook business page
- Yelp listing
- Apple Maps (auto-pulled from GBP data)
- Local directory listings (if you're in Yelp, you're indexed by citation aggregators)
Not all of these need to be in sameAs. Include only profiles you actively control or that appear in the top 10 results when someone searches your business name. Skip the aggregator directories—they pull your data from GBP or your site anyway, and including hundreds of URLs dilutes the signal.
For a Brooklyn independent business, start with four: your site, GBP, Instagram (if you use it), and Yelp (if you're there). That's enough to establish identity coherence.
Why Engines Care About Identity
AI search relies on retrieval-augmented generation. When a user asks "best optometry in Crown Heights," the engine pulls sources it trusts. If your website, GBP, and Yelp look like separate businesses because they're not connected, the engine has to evaluate them independently. It might cite your GBP but not your site, or vice versa. You lose coherence.
With sameAs declared, the engine sees your profile strength across all platforms at once. Reviews on Yelp and your Business Profile can be read as being about the business your site describes, and the facts on your site can be checked against your profiles. What the engine learns from any one profile can count toward the same entity.
The GBP URL Problem
Getting the Google Business Profile URL right is the hardest part. GBP URLs are not always obvious. Here's how to find yours:
- Open your GBP dashboard.
- Click the business name at the top.
- Click "View Business." This opens your public GBP page.
- Copy the full URL from the address bar.
That URL goes into sameAs. It often looks like https://www.google.com/maps/place/business-name or a shorter Google Maps link. Use the full path, not a shortened URL.
Testing and Validation
Once you've added sameAs to your LocalBusiness schema, validate it:
- Go to the Schema Markup Validator (or Google's Rich Results Test).
- Paste your site's URL.
- Find your LocalBusiness block in the results.
- Expand the "sameAs" field—it should list every URL you added.
If sameAs appears but the URLs are malformed or missing, the markup is broken. Fix the URLs and re-test.
sameAs never appears in search results as its own feature. It's invisible to users. Its job is to tell engines which profiles belong to your business, so what they read about you in one place counts toward you in the others.
What This Means for Your Business
If you're a solo operator or a small independent business in Brooklyn, sameAs is one of the cheapest wins in schema markup. It takes 10 minutes to audit your profiles, find the URLs, and add them to your existing LocalBusiness schema. It requires no external tools and no paid services.
The payoff is coherence. Your profiles stop looking like separate businesses and start reinforcing each other. When an AI engine retrieves your business for a neighborhood-specific query, it has a clearer picture of one entity, and one that is harder to confuse with a competitor.