Correct use of Microdata and Schema.org to specify "email" as itemscope?

Question

Schema.org is what I've been using to add microdata to my first website but I'm finding out that the website is very vague and most of the questions I've had so far I have been able to find the answer on Stackoverflow or WebMaster.

On one page I have the schema set up as

<div itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person">
<h1><span itemprop="name">Name Here</span> &mdash; SEO</h1>
<h2 itemprop="address"><i>Manchester, New Hampshire</i></h2>    
<h3><a href="mailto:email@gmail.com?Subject=Service%20Inquiry">Email Me</a> 
&mdash;<span itemprop="email">email@gmail.com</span></h3>
</div>   

No problem there, I hope.

On another page of my website I only have the email me header as none of the other information is relevant. Right now I have that schema set up as

     <h2><a href="mailto:email@gmail.com?   
 Subject=Service%20Inquiry">Email Me</a> &mdash;<span itemscope    
 itemtype="https://schema.org/email">email@gmail.com</span></h2>

Email is an itemprop of person but I can't find the documentation saying that I can't use an itemprop as the itemtype. Did I use this correctly,and will the schema be read any differently to a crawler than the itemprop use of email?

Answer 1

You should not use a property as type and vice versa. While nothing stops you from doing this, it’s not defined what this would mean, so it’s likely useless for consumers.

If you want to markup the email address on the other page, you should add the appropriate type (to which this email address belongs to), e.g.:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
  <h2><a href="mailto:email@example.com">Email Me</a> — <span itemprop="email">email@gmail.com</span></h2>
</div>

If you want to make sure that consumers can understand that both Person items describe the same person, you could provide an itemid attribute. An implicit alternative would be to provide properties with unique values (and you are doing exactly this by specifying email). See my answer about both ways (itemid and unique property values).