Verify a Wikidata search candidate

What does this finding mean?

The report identifies this check as wikidata-candidate in Authority and entity. The category carries up to 18 of the 100 rubric points. This is a category weight, not an automatic deduction for this finding. Read the scan detail for the measured state, overlapping signals and any score cap.

Compare the official website and entity facts before using the Q-ID. Leave it out if the match is uncertain.

Why does this matter for AI retrieval?

A named publisher, an official URL and accountable authorship help a reader identify who is making a claim. sameAs links can disambiguate that identity. They do not prove trust or a citation advantage in any AI engine.

How do I check and resolve it?

1. Search Wikidata using the actual name. Open each plausible result instead of taking the first Q-ID as a match.
2. Compare the entity description, official website property P856 and any disambiguating facts. A shared name is insufficient.
3. If the entity is an exact match, add its canonical entity URL to the correct schema node. If no match exists, leave it out. Do not create a promotional Wikidata item to satisfy a scanner.

Adapt the example to the reported issue and the actual route. Placeholder names, URLs and dates must be replaced with facts from your site.

Copy code

# Search produces candidates, not confirmed matches.
curl -G 'https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php' \
  --data-urlencode 'action=wbsearchentities' \
  --data-urlencode 'search=Actual organization name' \
  --data-urlencode 'language=en' \
  --data-urlencode 'format=json'

Verify the result

Open the linked Q-ID and compare the official domain again. The scanner reports a candidate without awarding match points; a human must confirm identity.

Open the related tool or technical guide, then run a new scan of the affected URL. Keep unknown checks marked unknown until you have a complete response.

Copy a prompt for your coding agent

Paste this into Codex, Claude Code or Cursor from your own repository. Include the scan's exact URL and detail so the agent can verify the observation.

Copy prompt for coding agent

Investigate the scanner finding "Verify a Wikidata search candidate" (wikidata-candidate) in this repository.
Observation: A name search returned a possible entity. It earns no confirmed-match points.
Required change: Compare the official website and entity facts before using the Q-ID. Leave it out if the match is uncertain.
Inspect the existing route, shared layouts and configuration first. Confirm the finding against the actual response before editing. Preserve intentional access restrictions, existing content and unrelated changes. Use only factual identity and date values. Make the smallest appropriate fix, verify the deployed HTML or resource response and run the relevant project checks. Explain any measurement that remains unknown. Do not promise search rankings or AI citations.
Reference: https://letthebots.in/fixes/wikidata-candidate/