Multilingual websites offer content in multiple languages—for example, a U.S. healthcare organization can provide users with both English and Spanish versions of its site. On the other hand, multi-regional websites target users in different countries or regions, often adapting content to local preferences and regulations.

Some websites combine both approaches, serving as multilingual and multi-regional platforms. For instance, an eCommerce site operating in the USA and Canada might offer content in English, French, and Mandarin, tailoring the language to each region’s demographics.

While implementing Schema Markup on monolingual single-domain sites is relatively straightforward, managing Schema Markup for multilingual and multi-regional domains presents unique challenges.

This article will explore the challenges of implementing Schema Markup across diverse multilingual and multi-regional sites and the solutions to these challenges.

Common Issues When Marking up Multilingual Sites

1. Schema.org documentation is currently only available in English

One of the most frequent questions we encounter is, “Does Schema Markup support languages other than English?” The answer is a resounding yes. While Schema.org Types and properties are represented by English words and the Schema.org documentation is written in English, the content you map to those types and properties can be written in any desired language.

This means you can still mark up your pages if you have a site in a different language from English. For example:

{
   "@context": "https://schema.org",
   "@type": "Article",
   "headline": "Comment économiser de l'énergie à la maison",
   "author": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Marie Dupont"
      },
   "datePublished": "2024-06-14T17:50:16+00:00"
}

This example shows French content mapped to the property represented by the English word “headline”.

The real complexity arises when you must accommodate different formatting conventions across languages and regions manually or even using a plugin.

Why is it difficult for website owners to implement Schema Markup on their own?

Many site owners are unaware that you can still apply the Schema.org vocabulary to non-English pages and often neglect to add Schema Markup to their multilingual sites. This oversight can lead to missed opportunities for enhanced search engine understanding and visibility in the SERP.

Even when site owners apply Schema Markup to non-English pages, they may still face limitations if they’re using a plugin. Most Schema Markup plugins are black boxes and do not give site owners the flexibility to adjust the markup. If your website has additional complexities, plugins might not be able to mark up your site accurately.

Some plugins may also not recognize the language on your site, so you might be required to author your markup manually. Implementing and managing this across thousands of pages can be tedious and requires Schema Markup expertise to execute.

Schema App offers an automated and dynamic solution

Unlike typical plugins that struggle with scale, formatting, and language variations, Schema App’s dynamic markup deployment capabilities can help you easily manage complex, multi-domain, and multilingual sites.

The Schema App Highlighter is a Schema Markup generator that deploys dynamic Schema Markup to thousands of similarly templated pages. If you have a product detail page in seven different languages, the Schema App Highlighter can deploy accurate markup to all those pages regardless of which language the page content is written in. It can also recognize special characters and include them in the markup on your site.

With our solution, you also get a dedicated Customer Success Manager who can provide content and formatting recommendations to ensure your content is optimized for Schema Markup implementation.

Ensuring Schema Markup is properly implemented and formatted for each language and region is crucial for presenting your content to the right audiences, maintaining rich result eligibility, and providing consistent user experiences across your websites.

2. Handling Currency Formatting for Different Regions

Another issue many site owners face with marking up multilingual and multi-regional domains is currency formatting.

Schema.org can accommodate any currency format and gives users the ability to specify a “price” and a “priceCurrency” separately. However, if you are looking to target a Product rich result, you will want to follow Google’s more specific formatting requirements.

Using a comma (,) instead of a period (.) as a decimal separator will result in errors in the Rich Results Test (e.g. €100,50 should be written as €100.50). This may go against grammar rules but is critical for being Rich Result eligible.

Furthermore, websites may use periods or commas as digit group separators to support readability. We recommend omitting all digit group separators, but more importantly, avoid using periods as digit group separators. For example, the number one thousand should never be represented as 1.000, as Google will parse the period as a decimal separator and interpret the value as one (1).

Many European countries use a comma (,) as a decimal separator and a period as a digit group separator in their prices. Using this formatting in your markup can lead to several issues, including:

• Ineligibility for rich results like Product Listings
• Misinterpretation of price data by search engines

Challenges Scaling Different Currency Formatting

These nuances to differing currency formats are challenging at scale because you must manually update your Schema Markup on each page to accommodate price formatting and ensure machines understand that your price-based content is a price value.

Converting it to the format Schema.org accepts is necessary for machines to read it and incredibly tedious for anyone doing it manually across thousands of pages.

Most Schema Markup plugins cannot automatically reformat pricing into the Schema.org accepted format, making this a challenge for site managers who rely on plugins to implement their Schema Markup.

Common Formatting Issues

Decimal placements in your currency formatting aren’t the only issues that could arise with multilingual and multi-regional content. Other elements that may require attention include:

• Currency symbol placement (e.g., “500$” instead of “$500”)
• Date/time formats (e.g. “2024-07-03T12:50:15+4:00” instead of July 3, 2024 at 12:50pm)

All these elements must adhere to the conventions defined by the Schema.org vocabulary (e.g. following ISO-8601 time formatting).

A Scalable Solution

The Schema App Highlighter can omit or remove commas used as digit group separators to improve Rich Result eligibility. Additionally, you can also set conditional rules in the Schema App Highlighter to account for different currency formats and ensure that your prices are correctly marked up, regardless of the currency denomination.

Check out how we helped CAPREIT overcome their currency denomination challenges.

Schema App Simplifies Schema Markup for Multilingual Sites

Manual implementation of Schema Markup on a multilingual site becomes tedious and error-prone when dealing with thousands of pages across various languages and regions.

While plugins may seem like a solution, many do not allow website owners to customize their markup or do conditional formatting for their multi-lingual sites. This can hinder your ability to achieve rich results and ensure search engines understand your content.

This is why global enterprises with complex multilingual, multi-regional sites choose to work with Schema App.

Schema App’s end-to-end Schema Markup solution gives users access to tools like the Schema App Highlighter to manage currency formatting and ensure compliance with Google’s structured data requirements. You’ll also get an assigned Customer Success Manager to manage your markup, ensure your content is optimally formatted, and offer recommendations to further optimize your pages for Schema Markup implementation.

If you’re struggling to implement Schema Markup for your multilingual or multi-regional website, we’re here to help. Contact us today to learn how Schema App can streamline your Schema Markup process and boost your global online presence.

The post How to Implement Schema Markup for Multilingual or Multi-Regional Sites appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

It’s crucial to express Schema Markup in a format accepted by major search engines to take advantage of the Schema.org vocabulary, become eligible for rich results, and accurately describe your website content.

Popular search platforms like Google and Bing recognize three primary formats for Schema Markup:

1. Microdata
2. RDFa
3. JSON-LD

Implementing the appropriate format ensures that your structured data is accurately understood, enhancing your site’s visibility, aligning your content with more relevant search queries, and supporting rich result eligibility.

Understanding the Different Schema Markup Formats

Microdata, RDFa, and JSON-LD have unique features and implementation methods. Each of the three available formats has unique features and implementation methods. Let’s examine the pros and cons of each format to help you understand which format you should utilize for your website.

What is Microdata?

Microdata is an open-community HTML specification used to nest structured data within HTML content. Similar to RDFa, it utilizes HTML tag attributes to name the properties we want to present as structured data.

Microdata is typically implemented within the <body> element but can also be used in the <head> element.

<div itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Organization">
 <span itemprop="name">Schema App</span>
Contact Details:
 <div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/PostalAddress">
  Address:
   <span itemprop="streetAddress">412 Laird Road</span>
   <span itemprop="postalCode">N1G 3X7</span>
   <span itemprop="addressLocality">Guelph</span>
   <span itemprop="addressRegion">Ontario</span>
   <span itemprop="addressCountry">Canada</span>
 </div>
  Tel:<span itemprop="telephone">+1 855-444-8624</span>,
  E-mail: <span itemprop="email">support@schemaapp.com</span>

Pros of Using Microdata Format for Schema Markup

1. Markup is Dynamic

The microdata is added as an attribute for individual HTML elements, so your markup will be updated dynamically if any content changes are made.

For example, consider a <div> element attributed to the “Organization” type. This <div> can contain properties like “name” and “address.” If you change the content within any of these elements, the markup will automatically update to reflect the latest content.

2. Easy to Implement

Microdata can be easily inserted into HTML, making it more straightforward for those without coding skills to implement the Schema Markup. Microdata is generally easier to understand and maintain than other formats like RDFa.

Cons of Using Microdata Format for Schema Markup

1. Less Suitable for Advanced Schema Markup

While microdata works well for basic Schema Markup, it can become more complicated when dealing with advanced Schema Markup involving many nested entities.

Consider the Product schema type, which requires HTML elements for various attributes like price, ratings, reviews, and return policies to be nested. If your product page only had an image and a price, you can easily use microdata to markup your page.

However, the complexity increases with additional elements such as FAQs located lower on the page, branding information in a separate section, and ratings and reviews in a separate tab. These extra layers make the implementation messy and difficult to manage.

2. Messy Implementation

Since microdata has to be applied to each individual element on the webpage, the markup can become cluttered and messy, especially for larger websites, where your code can become “bloated” very quickly.

3. Unsuitable for Larger Websites

Due to the potential for clutter and the limitations of complex schemas, microdata is generally better suited for smaller websites with simpler structured data requirements.

What is RDFa?

RDFa (Resource Description Framework in Attributes) is an HTML5 extension that supports linked data. It does this by introducing HTML tag attributes that correspond to the user-visible content you want to describe for search engines.

RDFa is considered a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendation, meaning that it is a web standard. It can be used to chain structured data vocabularies together, which is especially useful if you want to add structured data that extends beyond the limits of Schema.org.

You can breathe a sigh of relief, however, as RDFa isn’t much different from Microdata. Similar to microdata, RDFa tags are incorporated with your webpage’s preexisting HTML code and are commonly used in both the <head> and <body> sections of an HTML page.

<div vocab="https://schema.org/" typeof="Organization">
  <span property="name">Schema App</span>
Contact Details:
  <div property="address" typeof="PostalAddress">
    Address:
     <span property="streetAddress">412 Laird Road</span>
     <span property="postalCode">N1G 3X7</span>
     <span property="addressLocality">Guelph</span>
     <span property="addressRegion">Ontario</span>
     <span property="addressCountry">Canada</span>
</div>
  Tel:<span property="telephone">+1 855-444-8624</span>,
  E-mail: <span property="email">support@schemaapp.com</span>

Pros of Using RDFa Format for Schema Markup

1. Flexibility

RDFa allows you to combine multiple vocabularies, making it more flexible than Microdata or JSON-LD for complex structured data requirements.

2. Widely Adopted Standard

Since RDFa is a standardized format recommended by the W3C, it ensures broad compatibility across various platforms, browsers, and search engines. This means that structured data marked up with RDFa will be more consistently interpreted and utilized by different web services.

3. Integrates with Existing HTML

Like Microdata, RDFa seamlessly integrates with your existing HTML code, making implementation easier.

Cons of Using RDFa Format for Schema Markup

1. Steep Learning Curve

RDFa has a steeper learning curve compared to Microdata or JSON-LD, as it requires a deeper understanding of linked data principles and vocabularies.

2. Messy implementation

Also similar to microdata, RDFa markup can become verbose and cluttered, especially for complex structured data implementations.

3. Limited Browser Support

While search engines support RDFa, some older browsers may have limited or no support for rendering RDFa markup.

Overall, RDFa offers a flexible and standards-compliant approach to structured data markup, but it may be more suitable for advanced use cases or when combining multiple vocabularies is necessary.

What is JSON-LD?

JSON-LD stands for JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data. It is a method of encoding structured data using the JSON format, which is a lightweight data-interchange format that is easy for machines to parse and generate.

The key difference between RDFa, Microdata, and JSON-LD is their implementation method on a page. Both RDFa and Microdata are added as properties within the content itself. Conversely, JSON-LD is added independently, typically in the header or footer of the HTML.

This resolves the issue of messy and cluttered implementation associated with both RDFa and microdata.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
   "@context": "https://schemaapp.com",
   "@type": "Organization",
   "name": "Schema App",
   "address": {
      "@type": "PostalAddress",
      "addressLocality": "Guelph",
      "addressRegion": "Ontario",
      "addressCountry": "Canada",
      "postalCode": "N1G 3X7",
      "streetAddress": "412 Laird Rd",
      },
   "email": "support@schemaapp.com",
   "telephone": "+1 855-444-8624",
}

JSON-LD is also a W3C recommendation and Google’s recommended format for structured data due to its simplicity and readability for both machines and humans. It offers several advantages.

Pros of Using JSON-LD Format for Schema Markup

1. Easiest Format for Machines to Interpret

JSON-LD is designed to be easily parsed and understood by machines, making it an efficient and accessible format for structured data.

2. Easy to Implement and Update

JSON-LD can be read even when dynamically injected into the page’s contents via JavaScript code or embedded widgets. It can be used to describe all types of media on a website—videos, audio, images, and interactive content—not just what exists in HTML documents.

JSON-LD also exists as a single block of code embedded within HTML, so you are not restricted by the structure of the content you are marking up.

3. Ability to Handle Complex Schema Markup

JSON-LD supports the management of complex, nested structured data, making it ideal for advanced use cases. Unlike Microdata, JSON-LD is not restricted by the content and structure of the HTML, offering greater flexibility. For instance, the ratings and reviews for a product can be positioned anywhere on the product page. With JSON-LD, you can easily nest the properties and values in the structured data regardless of where the content is placed in the HTML.

Cons of Using JSON-LD Format for Schema Markup

1. Learning Curve

JSON-LD can be difficult to learn and write manually, especially for those without prior experience with JSON or linked data concepts.

2. Technical Complexity

Implementing JSON-LD may require a higher level of technical expertise compared to Microdata or RDFa.

3. Update to Schema Markup Required If Done Manually

If you author the JSON-LD manually, you’ll need to update the JSON-LD code whenever you make content updates, as it’s separate from the main content.

This is why our customers love using the Schema App Highlighter, a scalable Schema Markup tool that generates and deploys JSON-LD Schema Markup to thousands of similarly templated pages on your site.

The Schema App Highlighter dynamically updates the Schema Markup on your page when content changes are made. This ensures that all content changes are automatically reflected in your JSON-LD markup in real time. This prevents Schema Drift and reduces the risk of manual coding errors.

What Format Should I Use for Schema Markup?

While Microdata, RDFa, and JSON-LD are all accepted formats for Schema Markup, JSON-LD emerges as our recommended choice. This is due to its flexibility and scalability for complex structured data implementations.

Despite its steeper learning curve and technical expertise requirements, JSON-LD is the format also endorsed by Google and other major search engines for its ease of readability for both machines and humans.

At Schema App, we understand the challenges of implementing JSON-LD at scale. This is why we created tools like the Schema App Highlighter to enable SEO teams to generate and deploy dynamic JSON-LD markup at scale.

With our end-to-end Schema Markup solution, we can help your team deploy robust Schema Markup to your site seamlessly, ensuring optimal search engine understanding and accurate representation of your brand in search results.

Get started with us today and unlock the full potential of JSON-LD Schema Markup for your organization.

The post What is the Recommended Format for Schema Markup? appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

In the digital marketplace, incorporating robust Schema Markup is one of the most critical steps you can take to get noticed. Schema Markup enables search engines to understand your web page content, effectively rank it, and present users with relevant search results.

What Is Schema Markup?

Schema Markup, also known as Structured Data, is data that you can add to your web page’s HTML code to explicitly define entities, properties, and relationships within your content. By doing so, it assists search engines in better comprehending and contextualizing your page content, thereby enabling them to deliver more accurate search results to users.

Schema Markup is created using the Schema.org vocabulary, a collaborative project involving major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex. The primary objective of Schema.org is to establish a standardized vocabulary for describing content on web pages, making it simpler for search engines to understand and interpret the meaning of various elements present on a webpage.

Although search engines use sophisticated machine learning algorithms, machines do not process or interpret information in the same way as humans. What might seem simple to a person may be unintelligible to a computer. Schema Markup helps fill in the blanks for search engines so that they know exactly what your page is about.

For instance, let’s say you have a product detail page containing an image and description of a handsaw, along with an image of the brand in the header.

A person reading this would immediately realize that the handsaw is from the brand “Dewalt,” but it might be difficult for search engines to understand that explicitly. You can use Schema Markup to identify that the brand of handsaw on this page is “Dewalt” so that the search engine can present this content for individuals searching phrases like “Dewalt handsaw.”

What are the main SEO benefits of using Schema Markup?

1. Help search engines understand the content on your page

Schema Markup enriches your website content by organizing its data in a way that is easily and accurately interpreted by search engines.

This gives search engines a more semantic understanding of what entities and topics your page covers, leading to more relevant search results. It also grants you more precise control over how search engines understand your content.

As such, search engines can intelligently display your content to the appropriate users. This targeted visibility can lead to higher clicks, impressions, and click-through rates, ultimately driving better-quality traffic to your site.

To delve deeper into how Schema Markup impacts your SEO efforts, refer to our ‘Common Questions About Schema Markup for SEO’ blog article.

2. Develop a Content Knowledge Graph that supports Generative AI Search

Structured data provides the foundation for developing your organization’s content knowledge graph.

Schema Markup not only describes the entities on your site but also outlines their relationships to other entities on your site and across the web. By implementing robust connected Schema Markup, you are building a content knowledge graph—a reusable data layer that captures relationships between various entities on your site using a standardized vocabulary like Schema.org.

This structured data framework is crucial for training and grounding generative AI search engines and other LLMs, which rely on factual data to mitigate errors and hallucinations.

Gartner has also identified knowledge graphs as a critical enabler for generative AI adoption, further highlighting Schema Markup’s fundamental role in AI advancements.

3. Achieve Rich Results

Implementing certain types of structured data can also enable search engines to display visually enhanced search results (aka rich results) instead of generic “plain blue link” results listings.

Rich results enhance standard search results by presenting additional information, such as a business location, images, product reviews, etc. Rich results are also referred to as enriched results or rich snippets, as they provide snippets of information about a page, brand, or business.

Example of a Product Rich Result

Example of a Review Snippet

Rich results are visually appealing and informative, making your listings stand out on the SERP and improving the overall search experience for users. By incorporating structured data, you cater to both customer needs and search engine algorithms, increasing your competitiveness in search results.

What types of Schema Markup are there?

There are many different types of Schema Markup that you can incorporate into your online content. Some of the most commonly used markup types include:

• Reviews: This type is used to mark up reviews for products, services, or other items. It includes properties like the reviewer’s name, rating, and review text.
• Product: Product markup is used for e-commerce sites to describe specific products. It includes details such as name, description, price, availability, and more.
• Local Business: This markup type is ideal for businesses with physical locations. It includes properties like name, address, phone number, opening hours, and geographical coordinates.
• Person: Person markup is used to describe individuals, including properties such as name, job title, contact details, and social media profiles.
• Organization: Similar to local business markup but broader, organization markup can be used for any type of organization, including corporations, educational institutions, non-profits, etc. It includes details like name, logo, contact information, and social profiles.
• Event: Event markup is used for marking up events such as concerts, workshops, or conferences. It includes properties like event name, date, location, and ticket information.
• Media Objects (images, videos, audio): Markup for media objects like images, videos, or audio files. It can include properties such as caption, thumbnail URL, and duration.
• Creative Works (movies, books, music, TV series, recipes): This type covers a range of creative content, including movies, books, music, TV series, and recipes. It includes properties specific to each type, such as author, director, actors, duration, and ingredients for recipes.

Choosing the right schema type depends on the nature of your content. Each type comes with its own set of properties that you can use to provide detailed and structured information about the content on your webpage. You can view the full list of Types here and learn more about the Schema.org vocabulary here.

What is the recommended format for implementing Schema Markup?

The most commonly used formats for implementing structured data are JSON-LD, microdata, and RDFa. However, Google recommends using JSON-LD due to its readability for both humans and machines.

Implementing JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is easier than implementing other formats like microdata or RDFa, and you can seamlessly incorporate it within the HTML of your web pages. This format is favored for its simplicity and effectiveness in conveying structured data to search engines.

How to implement Schema Markup on your site

Manually generate your own code and paste it on your site

One way to implement Schema Markup is to do it manually using the following steps.

1. Review Page Content: Examine each page on your site and identify what the page is mainly about.
2. Choose Schema Types: Select the appropriate schema type and properties that best describe the content on your page.
3. Write the JSON-LD: Create the Schema Markup in JSON-LD using the chosen schema types and properties.
4. Embed JSON-LD in HTML: Incorporate the Schema Markup JSON-LD into the HTML of your webpage.
5. Test Markup: Use tools like Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool (if you aim to achieve a rich result) or Schema.org’s Schema Markup Validator to validate and ensure correct implementation and desired results.

If you have the technological savvy to write the JSON-LD and can meticulously work through each page of your site’s content, this approach is a viable option.

However, the manual method of implementing Schema Markup is incredibly labor-intensive—especially if you have a huge website. Similarly, bringing in your own IT team to write and deploy the code can also be costly and time-consuming.

Use a Schema Markup Plugin

Instead of implementing the markup manually, you can opt to use a Schema Markup plugin to implement Schema Markup programmatically.

There are many Schema Markup plugins available for WordPress, Shopify and other CMSes that will allow you to add markup to your page programmatically. However, many Schema Markup plugins tend to be limiting in terms of the Schema type and properties you can leverage. You will also have little control over marking up each page.

Learn more about the pros and cons of using a Schema Markup plugin here.

Hire a Schema Markup Expert

The best way to implement advanced custom Schema Markup would be to hire a Schema Markup solutions provider like Schema App. At Schema App, we provide an end-to-end Schema Markup Solution through our leading semantic technology platform and a team of experts.

Our platform includes tools like our Highlighter and Editor that allow users to generate, deploy, and manage their structured data at scale. Our team of Schema Markup experts will also help you manage your structured data from strategy to results, deploying Markup at scale without diverting your in-house IT resources.

You can focus on your core marketing activities and trust us to deal with the complexities and nuances of your structured data.

Navigate the Complexities of Schema Markup with Schema App

Whether you choose to implement Schema Markup independently or require a solution like Schema App to expertly manage your organization’s Schema Markup, leveraging structured data offers a myriad of advantages for your SEO, AI, and semantic strategies.

If you need help implementing a robust Schema Markup strategy for your site, get in touch with us today.

The post What Is Schema Markup? A Guide to Structured Data SEO appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

However, Schema Markup is a very technical aspect of SEO, and navigating the complexities requires technical expertise, ongoing effort, and costs. As a result, we frequently encounter questions from our customers, digital marketers, and IT teams alike, seeking clarity on Schema Markup.

This article addresses some of these common questions head-on, providing insights to help you understand Schema Markup’s role in your SEO strategy to help you confidently implement it on your pages.

Let’s start with one of the most pressing questions newcomers to Schema Markup often ask…

Does Schema Markup help SEO?

Yes. Schema Markup contributes to SEO by improving click-through rates (CTR), which can indirectly support conversions. It aids SEO efforts in two main ways.

Firstly, it helps search engines comprehend and contextualize page content. Schema Markup enhances search engine understanding by identifying and describing entities on a page, which improves comprehension of the page’s topics and their connections within the site and across the web. This precision leads to more relevant search results, driving qualified traffic to your site.

In the context of AI search, where most search engines are powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) prone to errors and hallucinations, this understanding becomes even more critical. Schema Markup can ground and train the Large Language Models (LLMs) with factual information. This, in turn, allows them to provide more accurate search results and helps you control how the AI search engine interprets your brand and content, conveying that information accurately within search results.

Secondly, Schema Markup facilitates the generation of rich results. Rich results enable your content to stand out on the SERP as an enhanced organic search result, making it more attractive and engaging to users. This enhancement often leads to higher user engagement and CTR.

Specific types of rich results, such as Review Snippets, also play a crucial role in bolstering trust and credibility for your brand by fostering trust and positive brand perception through reviews and star ratings. For example, physician pages with Review Snippets tend to have higher CTRs than those without. Similarly, products featuring pricing information in the SERP through Product rich results typically garner more clicks.

Our customer, Baptist Health, saw a 491% increase in CTR for physician pages with review snippets compared to those without. Similarly, our customer Avid Technology experienced a substantial 241% increase in CTR for product pages with rich results compared to those without.

Is Schema Markup a search ranking factor?

No. Implementing Schema Markup does not directly impact your search rankings. However, it can indirectly impact rankings in certain ways.

While Schema Markup is not a direct ranking factor – like quality content, page speed, or backlinks – implementing Schema Markup can enhance your website’s appearance in the SERP by providing search engines with more clarity about your content, your organization and other associated entities.

This structured data enables search engines to better comprehend the content on your web pages. As a result, the search engine can more accurately align your page with the intent and meaning behind users’ relevant search queries, which could potentially improve your page’s ranking.

Can bad Schema Markup cause ranking loss?

Yes, it’s possible. Incorrect or poorly implemented Schema Markup can negatively affect your website’s search rankings.

What constitutes “bad” Schema Markup?

It could be markup that…

• Doesn’t accurately reflect the content on your page, aka schema drift.
• Goes against Google’s Content Guidelines – i.e. marking up invisible, irrelevant, or misleading content or engaging in other manipulative behaviors, which can be considered problematic.

If search engines encounter Schema Markup that is inaccurate, unclear, or violates their guidelines, they may ignore it or even penalize your site.

Some ways incorrect Schema Markup can impact your rankings include:

• Penalties: If search engines determine that your Schema Markup is manipulative or deceptive, they may penalize your website, resulting in lower rankings or even removal from search results.
• Misinterpretation: Incorrect Schema Markup can confuse search engines about your web pages’ content and context. This can lead to misinterpretations and may cause search engines to display your site less prominently or inaccurately in search results.
• User Experience: “Bad” Schema Markup can result in inaccurate or irrelevant information displayed on the SERP. This can lead to poor user experience, indirectly impacting your rankings as search engines aim to provide the most relevant and helpful results to users.

Can duplicate Schema Markup affect rankings?

While duplicate Schema Markup may not have a direct impact on rankings, it can diminish the effectiveness and clarity of your Schema Markup.

What is duplicate markup?

Duplicate markup refers to having two separate sets of markup describing the same entity, like a product, on a single page. If both markup sources provide identical content, such as the same product name and price, it’s typically not an issue. However, if the content differs between the two sources, for example, one block of Product markup shows a price of $15 while the other lists it as $15.99, it can confuse search engines like Google.

This confusion may reduce the likelihood of your page being awarded that result, resulting in uncertainty and potentially incorrect information on the SERP.

To conclude, duplicate markup may make your markup less effective if:

• The intent of the page is unclear
• There is conflicting information

Can there be two Schema Markup blocks on one page?

Yes, but let’s clarify. It is acceptable to have two primary entities that are neither identical nor nested and accurately describe the page. Ideally, the markup should be connected and/or nested, but this isn’t always possible given the hierarchy of entities on a page.

For instance, a Product Detail Page may have Product markup alongside BreadCrumb markup as primary entities. Since the breadcrumb isn’t related to the product entity, nesting it under the top-level Product markup doesn’t make sense.

However, if the page contains reviews and ratings related to the product, it’s advisable to nest the Review and AggregatingRating markup under the top-level Product markup. This accurately reflects the relationship between the product and these additional elements.

Ultimately, the goal is to clarify what’s on the page and how these content elements relate to each other. If there’s a connection, nesting is recommended; if not, having separate markup on a page is acceptable.

While Google won’t penalize you for failing to nest your markup, nesting is crucial for accurately representing relationships on your site and building a useful content knowledge graph.

How can I measure the performance of Schema Markup on my website?

How you measure performance may depend on the kinds of markup you’re adding to your page and your desired outcomes. You can assess performance either by individual URLs or by aggregating multiple URLs into groups, such as sitewide results or all pages within a specific subfolder.

There are a variety of tools you can use for this purpose, such as:

Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) provides insights into how Google indexes your markup, quality improvements, and offers limited ROI reporting. Let’s dive into the feature within GSC that best helps you monitor and maintain Schema Markup.

Search Results Performance Report by Search Appearance

The Search Appearance dimension report in Google Search Console will show you the clicks, impressions, click-through rates, and ranking by rich result. You can dive deeper into each rich result to see which URLs are achieving it and how the URLs with rich results are performing.

There are some limitations when using GSC. Namely, their 1000-row user interface limitation. This impacts websites with a large number of pages and those that rank for a large volume of queries. Additionally, creating the complex groupings required for strong ROI reporting can be a challenge in the GSC’s UI. It can be hard to isolate URLs without the use of regular expressions and complex queries that look for specific patterns in a text string.

Schema Performance Analytics

The Schema App team created Schema Performance Analytics (SPA) for in-depth markup performance reporting. It combines the markup performance data from Google Search Console and the Schema App Highlighter and Editor, and gives users more filtering options to analyze their markup by page level or line of business.

Additionally, SPA’s Page Level Report is not limited to 1000 rows of data. Our team imports the entire set of metrics using Google Search Console’s API so you can analyze the entirety of your dataset with ease.

A recent addition to Schema Performance Analytics is the “Incremental Clicks from Rich Results” feature.

This feature divides the results for an individual URL into instances where a rich result was attained versus when it appeared solely as a standard blue link. It calculates distinct clicks, impressions, and CTR for each group.

By leveraging this data, we can assess the frequency of achieving a rich result, the percentage change in CTR when a rich result is achieved, and extrapolate insights into the additional clicks achieved due to the enhanced appearance. For further details, refer to this documentation.

You can combine these platforms and methods to get a well-rounded overview of your Schema Markup’s performance. By assessing its impact on your website’s performance, you can make informed decisions to optimize its implementation for better results.

You can learn how to calculate ROI from Schema Markup by reading this article. 

When will I start to see the impact of Structured Data in organic search?

The timeline for observing results from structured data in organic search depends on your markup strategy and the result you want to achieve.

For rich result-eligible markup, the impact can be evident quite quickly as soon as Google indexes your markup. There are a few key steps that must occur in order to see results:

1. Markup deployment: Your team’s changes to your markup are reflected in our system within 5 minutes of making changes in the Schema App Editor or Highlighter. If your website uses caching technology, it could take longer for the JSON-LD to appear in your rendered HTML. For more info, refer to this support document.
2. Markup indexing: After deployment, Google needs to index the Markup, which depends on how frequently Google crawls your site. This point in the process is also when we may discover technical limitations preventing Google from seeing and using your markup. These discoveries could cause further delays.
3. Google may begin awarding Search Features as soon as it indexes your results. The shortest time period for this is 2-3 days, but this process typically takes closer to a week or more.

When evaluating the impact of using structured data for semantic or entity-related objectives, it becomes more challenging to measure the direct impact of implementing Schema Markup. Over time, you may notice your page appearing on the SERP for more relevant keywords and observe an increase in click-through rates.

However, as per information from this Google SEO Starter Guide, these outcomes may take weeks or months to materialize. Unlike Rich Results, semantic efforts do not have a performance report filter in GSC. To report on results, we recommend a combination of approaches, including monitoring the SERP for key queries and in-depth data analysis on performance metrics.

How can we separate the impact of Schema Markup from other SEO initiatives?

Identifying the distinct impact of Schema Markup can be relatively straightforward because implementing Schema Markup is typically the primary method of achieving a rich result. However, there are exceptions, such as Merchant Listing Results, which can originate from markup or a Google Merchant Center account.

To separate the impact effectively, you can utilize Schema Performance Analytics tools like Page Level Analysis and Incremental Rich Result Clicks. However, in cases where other initiatives target the same group of URLs as the markup, isolating the direct impact becomes challenging.

There are, however, some strategies to consider:

1. Clear Team Communication! To isolate the impact of Schema Markup from the work of your content team, it’s important to know what your team is working on that could impact results, including URLs, types of content and site improvements made, etc.
2. Do A/B Testing or use control groups: Try to create equal groups of URLs with similar traffic volumes and formatting. You can use Schema Performance Analytics to compare the results over time between the experimental group (with Schema Markup) and the control group and assess any significant differences.
3. Acknowledge Challenges: Sometimes, it might be challenging to completely isolate Schema Markup’s impact from other initiatives. SEO is a cross-functional industry, and accepting the reality that shared efforts lead to shared results may be necessary.

Supporting you on your Schema Markup journey

Understanding the significance of Schema Markup is crucial for optimizing website content and driving success in SEO, AI, and semantic search initiatives. Digital teams must understand and measure the impact of Schema Markup on their SEO goals to craft and implement an effective strategy tailored to their organization’s goals.

If you’re looking to develop and implement an advanced Schema Markup strategy at scale and build your knowledge graph, Schema App offers an end-to-end solution that combines our semantic Schema Markup platform with High Touch Support services to drive results. Contact our team to get started.

The post Common Questions About Schema Markup for SEO appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

Beyond this, implementing Schema Markup can also result in a reusable content knowledge graph for organizations looking to train their internal LLMs, gain a semantic advantage in AI search, and manage their internal data more efficiently.

Let’s take a look at what Schema Markup is and the value it adds to healthcare organizations like yours.

What is Schema Markup?

Schema Markup, also known as structured data, is metadata based on the Schema.org vocabulary that you can add to your website to help search engines better understand and contextualize your web content.

When you implement Schema Markup on your site, you use the Schema.org vocabulary to describe the entities on your web page and how they relate to other entities on your site and across the internet. This helps search engines clearly understand what your web page is about and enables them to provide users with more accurate and relevant search results.

For example, your healthcare organization might have a physician page with content about the physician’s medical specialties, practice location, ratings and reviews, and contact information. When you apply Schema Markup to that page, you express this information in machine-readable format using the Schema.org types and properties. This helps to disambiguate your content topics and support search engine comprehension.

Common Schema Types for Healthcare Providers

In the Schema.org vocabulary, types are how you categorize the various entities on your page, and properties are attributes or characteristics that provide additional details and contextual information about a given entity.

Healthcare organizations can use more general types such as Organization, Physician, MedicalClinic, and more. However, the Schema.org vocabulary contains a Health and Life Sciences extension of over 200 Types and 160 properties specific to the medical space.

These include everything from terms for describing diseases and injuries, such as AnatomicalStructure and MedicalSignOrSymptom, to systems of medicine, such as TraditionalChinese and WesternConventional.

In addition to those listed above, here are some other examples of types of content that you can use to explain information about your healthcare organization:

• MedicalOrganization – Home page
• Hospital – Hospital pages
• IndividualPhysician – Physician pages
• MedicalCondition or MedicalProcedure or MedicalTest– Medical Services pages

The main purpose of implementing Schema Markup is to help search engines understand and contextualize the content on your site. Therefore, it is best practice to choose the most appropriate type and properties that best describe the content on your page.

In some cases, adding Schema Markup can also enhance the appearance of a search result on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). This is known as a rich result.

Common Types of Rich Results for Healthcare Providers

A rich result is a visually enhanced and information-rich search result displayed in the SERP, achieved through structured data. Rich results can include star ratings, reviews, and other details, making your healthcare organization’s search appearance more attractive and informative.

Pages with rich results tend to see an increase in click-through rates, higher-quality traffic, and appointments booked, offering measurable results.

Google has specific eligibility and structured data guidelines for each rich result. Aligning your markup with these criteria enhances your chances of achieving various rich results. Here are some common types of rich results that healthcare websites can achieve through structured data.

Review Snippet

Patient engagement is important for any health organization. 94% of healthcare patients leave online reviews about their experiences. Many physician or location pages tend to include reviews and ratings. By nesting the appropriate Schema Markup on your physician or location pages, these pages can achieve a review snippet.

Review Snippets can help organizations display their credibility and build trust during the search journey. When our customer, Sharp Healthcare, achieved Review Snippets for their Physician pages, the CTR for those pages increased by 119%.

Job Posting Rich Results

Hiring talent is top of mind across most healthcare organizations, and Schema Markup provides innovative opportunities around healthcare recruitment.

Healthcare organizations can use Job Posting Rich Results to showcase their job openings directly on Google’s search results, providing key details like job title and location. This boosts visibility, attracts qualified candidates, and streamlines the hiring process.

Our customer, Baptist Health, saw an 1194% increase in CTR when the job posting rich result was awarded.

Product Rich Results

If your healthcare organization sells products such as CPAP machines or flu shots, you can leverage Product Rich Results to display key product information such as price, reviews, and availability directly on the search result.

This provides users with clear and immediate details, which can help them make quick decisions and increase your web conversions.

Recipe Rich Results

If your organization publishes healthy recipes on your site, you can make that content eligible for a Recipe rich result by marking them up with Recipe structured data.

These are just some of the rich result opportunities that healthcare organizations can leverage to stand out in search. However, the value of Schema Markup far exceeds rich results.

Why is Schema Markup Important for Healthcare Providers?

Search engine advancements have transformed the conventional approach to healthcare, with a growing number of patients seeking relevant health-related information directly on the SERP.

Schema Markup is a powerful yet underutilized SEO strategy that can help healthcare organizations stand out in this competitive search landscape and provide answers directly in the search results when prospective patients need it most. Beyond achieving rich results and bringing pertinent information about your organization to the SERP, Schema Markup supports several other healthcare organizations’ SEO initiatives.

Enhanced Search Visibility

Schema Markup helps search engines better understand the content on a healthcare provider’s website. This improved comprehension can lead to higher accuracy in search results. This can improve the provider’s visibility to individuals searching for relevant healthcare information.

Improved Customer Journey

Users can obtain critical details directly from the SERP, including facility location, hours, specialties, and reviews. This fosters transparency, credibility, and trust (contributing to your organization’s E-E-A-T) from the start of their customer journey. The streamlined journey leads to easy navigation to booking pages, reducing steps for user-friendly appointment scheduling.

Develop a Reusable Content Knowledge Graph

By implementing Schema Markup on your site, you can create a reusable content knowledge graph that helps generative AI search engines understand and infer knowledge from your content. This content knowledge graph can also be reused to power internal AI initiatives and ground LLMs with accurate information about your organization.

By developing your content knowledge graph, you can control how your brand is understood and presented in search.

The Challenges of Implementing Schema Markup at Scale

Despite all the benefits of implementing Schema Markup for your healthcare organization, creating and implementing a Schema Markup strategy at scale can be costly, complex, and time-consuming.

SEO teams often lack the expertise and the IT resources to deploy and update Schema Markup at scale across their websites. That’s where Schema App comes in. At Schema App, we provide an end-to-end, HIPAA-compliant, Schema Markup solution for leading healthcare organizations.

Benefits of Schema App for Healthcare Organizations

1. Measurable Results

One of the best things about Schema Markup is that it is measurable. This makes showing the return on investment from your work with Schema App easy. When you optimize your web pages with Schema Markup and start achieving rich results, Google Search Console reports on the impressions and clicks you achieve specifically from the URLs that are getting these decorated results.

When you start working with Schema App, we ask about your organizational goals and what success looks like from your work with us. We ensure that you have tangible results to show how Schema Markup is contributing to your organization’s goals.

The most common measures are impressions, clicks and click-through rates from rich results achieved on your site. Upon achieving those results, we’ll continue to optimize your Schema Markup strategy and ensure your content evolves with the changing SEO world.

How do you convert clicks to dollars?

If you don’t have a way to correlate clicks or sessions on your website to appointments booked, you can do a simpler calculation by taking your cost-per-click and multiplying it by the number of clicks you get from rich results. The result is the number of dollars you saved from paid advertising through increased organic traffic. Our customers often see an ROI greater than 10X.

# of Clicks from Rich Results X Avg CPC = Value of work done with Schema Markup & Schema App

This allows marketing teams to easily prove the return on investment in their SEO efforts.

2. Retaining Talent through Agility and Scale

In addition to the measurable ROI from clicks, Schema App offers healthcare organizations a return on investment by adding agility to their teams.
Agility is critical to any business’s success. With Schema App, SEO teams no longer need to learn Schema Markup or wait for internal IT teams to update their markup.

Our Schema App Highlighter tool allows SEO teams to generate and deploy dynamic Schema Markup to thousands of similarly templated pages within minutes. Combined with our team of expert Customer Success Managers, SEO teams can access a Schema Markup expert and make updates to their Schema Markup quickly to see results. We aim to ensure we deliver our client’s quarter-over-quarter results with speed and agility.

On top of delivering greater results, staying agile can also help with employee retention. Operational inefficiencies can hold teams back and be demotivating, resulting in lower employee retention. When your team sees their Schema Markup strategies come to life in little to no time, they are empowered by the results, which motivates them to keep performing.

3. Show Value Cross Functionally and to your Physicians

Many of our clients have already tried to do Schema Markup on their own.

SEO specialists spend countless hours trying to learn how to write Schema Markup (JSON-LD) page by page before submitting it to IT to be implemented on the page. With our Schema App Highlighter tool, SEO teams can generate Schema Markup (JSON-LD) dynamically at scale and deploy it across pages in just a few clicks. They can also reduce their dependency on their development team and get the job done quickly.

Schema Markup not only benefits SEO efforts but also supports physicians within healthcare networks by:

• showcasing reviews and ratings,
• enhancing visibility and appearance on the SERP, and
• building trust with current and prospective patients.

This, in turn, can drive more appointments for these physicians and improve reputability. This can make your physicians more inclined to stay with your healthcare organization, thus aiding physician retention.

Our partnership with Schema App reassures us that this important component of our SEO strategy is being managed. The data we have been able to get out of this is great. Providers love to see how good their marked-up listings look in search results. It’s great evidence of the work we do behind the scenes to increase visibility in our market.”

– Julie Goldstein-Dunn, Director, Experience Insights & Analytics, Henry Ford Health System

Working with Schema App

In the healthcare industry’s competitive landscape, it’s essential to stand out in search results to maintain relevance and visibility among competitors. Integrating innovative strategies like Schema Markup is key to distinguishing your brand. If you haven’t already integrated Schema Markup into your strategy, now is the ideal time to do so, especially as search algorithms increasingly prioritize semantic understanding.

At Schema App, we provide an end-to-end Schema Markup solution. We partner with healthcare networks and other organizations to help their content be better understood by search engines so they can stand out in search. Our aim is to empower organizations like yours to deliver a seamless healthcare experience to their customers with ease and scale.

The post The Value of Schema Markup for Healthcare Organizations appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

At Schema App, the ambiguity around the use of the Physician type has long been an area of contention for many of our healthcare customers. Therefore, this article will hone in on the issues around Physician Schema Markup and how the new clarifying subtypes will resolve them.

The Issue With Physician Schema Markup

Prior to Schema.org’s version 24 release, the Physician type was intended to represent a doctor’s office. It was a subtype of MedicalBusiness via both Organization and Place, and MedicalOrganization via Organization, as shown in the hierarchy below.

• Thing > Organization > LocalBusiness > MedicalBusiness > Physician
• Thing > Place > LocalBusiness > MedicalBusiness > Physician
• Thing > Organization > MedicalOrganization > Physician

This hierarchy emphasized the categorization of Physician markup as a business with a physical location.

However, naming the type “Physician” caused confusion regarding how to use it properly. As a result, the Physician type was usually applied to describe an individual physician rather than a physician’s office with a physical location.

You can read more about the issue in this GitHub ticket.

Changes to Physician Type in Schema.org v24

Therefore, Schema.org made a few changes to the Physician type in v24 to provide users with greater clarity in their categorization.

1. Redefined the Physician type

The Physician type is now defined as ‘an individual physician or a physician’s office considered as a MedicalOrganization’.

2. Removed Physician as a subtype of LocalBusiness

The Physician type is now exclusively a subtype of MedicalOrganization.

3. Added usNPI property to the Physician type

The Physician type now also includes the usNPI (National Provider Identifier) property, a unique 10-digit identification number issued to healthcare providers in the United States by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

4. Introduced two new Physician subtypes: IndividualPhysician and PhysiciansOffice

Schema.org added IndividualPhysician and PhysiciansOffice as subtypes of Physician to disambiguate between these two interpretations of the Physician type.

Note: Schema.org version 26.0 later went on to restore PhysiciansOffice as a subtype of MedicalBusiness, after accidentally omitting it from the v24 update.

You can read more about it in this GitHub ticket.

5. Added occupationalCategory property to the Physician type

The occupationalCategory property is used to describe a job, preferably using a term from a taxonomy such as BLS O*NET-SOC, ISCO-08 or similar. This means you can specify whether a Physician (or its subtypes) has a specific occupational category like obstetrics or pediatrics.

6. Added new practicesAt property to the IndividualPhysician subtype

We will expand on this more in the section below.

But before that, let’s learn more about the two new Physician subtypes and how to use them.

Using the IndividualPhysician Subtype

The IndividualPhysician subtype should be used to describe an entity that is an individual medical practitioner.

The IndividualPhysician subtype still has properties available for things like:

• address
• hospitalAffiliation
• availableService

However, it also has the new ‘practicesAt’ property, which is unavailable to either Physician or PhysiciansOffice.

The practicesAt property should be used to indicate the MedicalOrganization (i.e. hospital, clinic, pharmacies, etc.) where this individual physician practices. If you have the MedicalOrganization entity defined on a different page of your site, you can connect both entities using this property.

Using the PhysiciansOffice Subtype

The PhysiciansOffice subtype should be used to describe an entity that is a doctor’s office or clinic.

It has the exact same properties as the Physician type, so you can still associate the PhysiciansOffice with a location using the address and hospitalAffiliation properties.

Should you Update Your Physician Markup?

In summary, the changes made to the Physician type in v24 will allow users to describe their content with greater specificity and help search engines better understand and contextualize the content on a page.

If you would like to continue using the Physician type to describe the entity on your page, you can do so since the new subtypes have almost the exact same properties. However, being specific with your Schema Markup is essential for search engines to disambiguate the entities on your site, thus allowing them to provide users with more accurate and relevant search results.

Therefore, we recommend updating your markup if you want to:

• Clearly distinguish between an individual physician vs a physician’s office,
• Leverage the practicesAt property, which is only available under the IndividualPhysician type.

The Schema App platform already supports Schema.org V24 if you want to try out the new Physician subtypes and properties. If you are a Schema App Enterprise customer, chat with your Customer Success Manager if you have questions about using these new types and properties.

If your healthcare organization is in need of healthcare schema expertise, we can help!

At Schema App, we provide an end-to-end Schema Markup solution for healthcare organizations and other enterprise SEO teams. Contact us to learn more about our solution.

The post Schema.org V24.0 Release: Changes to Physician Schema Markup appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

In this article, we dive into what Product Schema Markup is, its benefits, and how you can achieve greater visibility and engagement on search by leveraging it on your product web pages.

Expanding on its multiple benefits, adding Product Schema Markup can help your eCommerce website in two ways:

1. Product Schema Markup enhances how your store and products appear on the search engine results page (SERP).

These enhancements, formerly called rich snippets and now known as rich results, can include star ratings, reviews, price, availability, and much more!

You’re probably familiar with star ratings and reviews, as they really stand out in search results as they do in the following example for Ariat. In addition to ratings and reviews, Product rich results can also highlight shipping and return information.

2. Product Schema Markup provides context for the content on your web pages so search engines can better understand and match your products with a user’s search intent.

Schema Markup has benefits that extend beyond achieving rich results for your products and services in search. Through Schema Markup, you can define objects on your web pages as distinct entities with their own properties and relationships to other entities. Once defined, you can connect these entities to a search engine’s knowledge graph, which streamlines your content to be matched with a relevant search query.

For example, if your eCommerce store sells vegan snacks and alternatives, your structured data markup informs Google that these snacks are products for sale and that it’s not, for example, a blog post about the best vegan alternatives to snack on.

Distinguishing Between Product Snippets and Merchant Listings

According to Google, there are two classes of Product rich results: Product snippets and merchant listing experiences.

Merchant listings serve as an extension of the product snippet item, providing more comprehensive search results that consistently feature a price. A carousel may showcase these listings alongside similar products from various sellers or within a knowledge panel in the SERP.

While Product rich results do not appear in the shopping tab, merchant listings do. Notably, they manifest differently within the shopping tab. Incorporating merchant listings allows you to customize your approach as you enhance your target product with additional properties. This is a process that requires the integration of Product markup.

Merchant listings come with a broader set of recommended properties compared to product snippets. These expanded features allow you to segment results based on factors such as seller, brand, pattern, size, and more.

The properties required and recommended for merchant listings are more exhaustive, providing a more detailed and nuanced representation. For example, product snippets don’t require an image, but merchant listings require one.

The effectiveness of merchant listing experiences hinges on specific product data, such as price and availability. It’s important to note that only pages that directly support the product purchases are eligible for merchant listing experiences; pages containing links to other sites selling the product do not meet the criteria.

For reference, see the following example of another Ariat product that achieved an enhanced merchant listing. Notably, it has price listed, a large and clear image of the product, delivery information, ratings, and shipping information.

Product Result Reporting

Each type of rich result—product snippet and merchant listing—comes with distinct enhancements and reporting, each adhering to its own set of requirements and recommendations.

As per an announcement from Google Search Central, they conveyed through a tweet that, “In January 2024, [GSC] will stop reporting the Product results search appearance, both in the Performance report and the API”.

This decision to deprecate Product results aligns logically with the prior split into merchant listings and product snippets. Given that Product results essentially represent a combination of the two, the decision to deprecate it is a move towards more detailed and nuanced reporting for each.

Required and Recommended Properties for Product Structured Data

Google maintains documentation that explains what is required for “Product” structured data.

We’ve captured the most common required and recommended fields below. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the requirements and recommendations may differ between Product Snippets and Merchant Listing eligibility.

For an exhaustive list of requirements and recommendations for both Merchant Listings and Product Snippets, visit the Product Information section in their Structured Data Documentation for Product.

You can see in the example below that you can toggle between the specific properties for “Product Snippets” and “Merchant Listings” exclusively.

You must populate the required properties in order for your content to be eligible for display as a rich result in search. Recommended properties add more information to your structured data, which can provide a better user experience.

Looking for additional guidance implementing Product structured data? Read our article “6 Common Product Rich Result Mistakes You Might be Making” for more tips.

Product

https://schema.org/Product

It’s important to note that Product Structured Data requires only one of the following properties:

• Review
• aggregateRating
• Offers

Once you fulfill one of these requirements, the remaining properties will become recommended rather than required. That being said, it is always best to markup all three properties as they can provide more information in the rich result.

TIP! Add Review, aggregateRating, and Offers properties to provide more information in the rich results.

We created the following visual to help conceptualize the structure of Product Schema Markup. With Product as the starting point, the required properties are used to connect to information in the form of text, URLs, or other data items containing their own properties.

The required and recommended properties for the Review, AggregateRating, and Offer data items are as follows:

Review

https://schema.org/Review

AggregateRating

https://schema.org/AggregateRating

*Note: You must have at least one of ratingCount or reviewCount.
**Note: only required if the rating system is not a 5-point scale (1 = worst rating, 5 = best rating)

Offer

https://schema.org/Offer

TIP! While itemReviewed is required for standalone Review and AggregateRating data items, these should not be used when embedded within the Product template.

FYI: For the most current guidelines on required and recommended fields, reference the Google Developers Reference Guide.

How to Create Product Structured Data

There are two types of pages where you would typically create Product structured data:

1. A product page listing a single product and
2. A shopping aggregate page listing a single product with information from other sellers offering that product.

Learn more in Google’s Product structured data documentation.

To help you get started, we have compiled the fundamental steps for creating Product Structured Data:

Step 1: Add Required Properties for Product Structured Data

Add the required Schema.org properties for Product structured data markup using our reference above. We recommend our own tools, the Schema App Editor and Schema App Highlighter, but there are many different options out there.

You should add all of the recommended and required properties, but also ensure you are connecting the entities on your site. For example, if the brand of your product on your website is also your organization, you want to make sure that the “brand” property connects back to your organization’s entity.

The Schema App Highlighter is a product of the brand, Schema App. Therefore, we can nest the Schema App Organization markup under the brand property to reflect the connection between the Schema App Highlighter and Schema App.

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org/",
  "@type": "Product",
  "@id": "https://schemaapp.com/highlighter/#Product",
  "name": "Schema App Highlighter",
  "brand": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "@id": "https://schemaapp.com/#Organization",
    "name": "Schema App",
  }
  "aggregateRating": {
    "@type": "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue": 4.7,
    "reviewCount": 63, 
  }
}

Step 2: Review your Product Structured Data to ensure it follows Google’s Structured Data Guidelines

Google’s Product structured data feature guide has specific technical guidelines as well as content guidelines.

Your structured data and website content have to adhere to all these structured data guidelines to be eligible for a Product rich result. Read our article to learn How to Optimize Your Content to Achieve Google’s Rich Results.

Step 3: Deploy your Product Structured Data to the Relevant Pages

Once you’ve finished authoring your markup and ensuring your content aligns with Google’s guidelines, it’s time to deploy your markup.

Google recommends using JSON-LD, which is also our favourite format for deployment!

Step 4: Validate your pages to make sure the Structured Data is working

To test that your Product structured data is working properly, you should use:

1. The Schema Markup Validator (SMV)
2. Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool

Using the Schema Markup Validator

The Schema Markup Validator (SMV) was modelled after and has officially replaced Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool (SDTT). Many SEOs still prefer the SDTT, as the SMV only validates your schema.org syntax and does not show your eligibility for rich results.

Using the Rich Results Testing Tool

Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool helps you to see which rich results can be generated by the structured data it contains.

If you’ve done everything correctly, you should start achieving Product rich results for your pages. However, it is important to note that eligibility for a rich result doesn’t guarantee that the rich result will be awarded to your page.

Google’s goal is to present users with the most relevant search results. If they do not deem a rich result to be relevant to the searcher’s query, they will likely present your page as a regular search result.

Step 5: Manage your Structured Data on an Ongoing Basis

As mentioned earlier, adding structured data to your site not only allows you to be eligible for rich results, it also enhances the search engine’s understanding of your content. This enables search engines to provide users with more relevant and accurate search results.

Therefore, it is imperative for you to continue managing your structured data on an ongoing basis even after you’ve achieved a rich result. To maintain your rich result eligibility, you’ll need to ensure the content on your page matches the structured data.

As we shift towards AI search, maintaining your structured data can also help you control how AI search engines interpret your brand and content. Thereby futureproofing your organization’s web visibility and contributing to the development of the semantic web.

Having a dynamic Schema Markup solution like the Schema App Highlighter can help you update your markup whenever the content on your page changes. Get in touch with our team to learn more.

Scaling Your Product Schema Markup

At Schema App, we don’t just focus on achieving Product rich results – we’re dedicated to unlocking the full semantic potential of your content.

By applying Schema Markup to your product pages, you not only make them eligible for rich results, but you also provide clarity and contextual understanding to search engines through your content markup. This approach lets you take charge of how your brand appears in search, improving visibility and enhancing relevance in search results.

Through the powerful combination of our Schema Markup expertise and advanced semantic technology, we empower your digital team to be more agile and effective in their SEO strategy and preparation for the future of AI-driven search.

We’ve helped eCommerce brands such as Avid Technology and Keen Footwear become leaders in the online shopping industry by showcasing their unique value in search with structured data.

If you’re struggling to find a scalable solution to enhance your Product rich results and drive performance, Schema App is here to help. Get in touch with us today.

Frequently Asked Questions about Product Schema Markup

What is Product Structured Data?

Product Structured Data, also known as Product Schema Markup, is code you can add to the backend of your website so that search engines can provide additional information about your products in search through enhanced features like product rich results.

Schema Markup is a standardized vocabulary that uses the properties and types defined at Schema.org, a resource for SEOs created by Google, Microsoft, Yandex, and Yahoo back in 2011.

How do you Create Product Structured Data?

1. Add all of the required Product schema.org properties to your individual product pages. Google recommends using JSON-LD, as do we!
2. Validate your structured data markup using Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool.
3. Deploy your structured data markup, and use the Schema Markup Validator to analyze your schema.org syntax for any errors.
4. Request that Google recrawls your newly marked-up web page using Google Search Console.

How do you Fix Product Structured Data Errors?

Product structured data seems complex because of three common errors that appear for this type of structured data: “offers”, “reviews”, and “aggregate rating” showing up as ‘either “offers”, “review”, or “aggregateRating” should be specified’. To fix this error, you’ll need to use these three schemas in your Product markup. Product structured data requires including either “offers”, “reviews”, or “aggregateRating” in your Schema Markup.

Once one of these has been fulfilled, the remaining properties will become recommended rather than required. It is always best to markup all three properties as they can provide more information in the rich result. Learn more about how to tell if your Schema Markup is working in our guide.

The post Creating “Product” Schema Markup appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

However, we’ve seen the role of Schema Markup shift over this past year. This article explores the journey of Schema Markup and its changing role in SEO throughout 2023, emphasizing the growing importance of its semantic value over just rich results.

Early 2023 – Fluctuations in Rich Results

In 2022, the performance of rich results experienced fluctuations, and 2023 has been no different.

In April 2023, Google stopped showing Video rich results on the SERP for pages, favouring YouTube results, or pages where the video was the main element of the page. As such, many organizations can no longer rely on video-rich results to drive traffic to their site.

At the same time, Schema Performance Analytics saw the performance of FAQ rich results declining on mobile for unexplained reasons. However, John Mueller mentioned in an unofficial statement that “sites love adding FAQ markup; it gives them more room to search, and at some point, it makes the results less useful. The right balance makes sense to re-evaluate from time to time, like with any other search element.” This was perhaps Google’s test to see how the removal of FAQ rich results would impact the search experience.

To mitigate the risk from these rich result fluctuations, Schema App’s High Touch Support team made content recommendations that would allow our customers to diversify the types of rich results they were achieving. When it came to making changes with agility, the Schema App Highlighter was used to make quick edits, as it enables the creation of Schema Markup templates that can easily be updated when changes to content occur.

February & May 2023 – The Introduction of Generative AI Search Engines

In February 2023, Microsoft rolled out the new Bing, which included its AI chatbot, Bing Chat. Google followed suit, unveiling the experimental Search Generative Experience (SGE) at the Google I/O conference in May 2023, sparking significant changes in the dynamic of search.

SGE, though in its testing phase, disrupted search results by relegating organic search results, including rich results, lower on the SERP.

Furthermore, these generative AI search engines were prone to hallucinations and biases, resulting in inaccurate search results. This raised critical questions for organizations: How could they control the way generative AI search engines interpreted their content to ensure accurate information on SGE?

The evolving AI landscape generated both excitement and concern, with uncertainties about its impact on SEO. Amidst the ambiguity, the key question persisted on whether Schema Markup aided AI algorithms in comprehending website content.

Preparing for AI-Search

During his Pubcon keynote speech, Fabrice Canel, Principal Program Manager for Bing, shared that SEOs could prepare for this new AI-enabled search by creating great content and annotating it with Schema Markup. As such, many SEO professionals leaned towards implementing Schema Markup.

Recognizing it as the language that search engines used to understand site content, Schema Markup emerged as a concrete way for SEOs to stay relevant during the rapid AI evolution. This approach provided a sense of control over how search engines interpreted content and was adopted by many forward-looking organizations.

The semantic value of Schema Markup, which refers to the underlying meaning and context it adds to the content, became increasingly apparent to SEOs at this time. However, it did so in a somewhat hypothetical manner. Unlike rich results, the quantitative measurement of this semantic value of Schema Markup posed challenges.

At this time, Search Engines didn’t provide any analytics on how content was performing in SGE or Bing Chat. Consequently, SEO teams often relied on rich results as a tangible metric to gauge the effectiveness of their Schema Markup strategy.

August 2023 – FAQ & How-to Deprecation: A Turning Point

Despite the announcement of SGE, the performance of rich results seemed relatively stable on Google. However, between August and September 2023, a significant turning point unfolded as Google deprecated How-to rich results and dramatically reduced the frequency of FAQ rich results. The latter were then restricted to display exclusively on “well-known, authoritative government and health websites.”

Drop in clicks after deprecation of How-To rich results

The deprecation of FAQ, a previously widely utilized rich result, reignited concerns about the continued relevance of Schema Markup. While there are still over 30 rich results available, few had the flexibility like FAQ to use on diverse content.

In a year where marketing budgets were critiqued, and leaders required measurable ROI for initiatives to be approved, the absence of clicks and impressions from rich results made it challenging to quantify the value of Schema Markup. Many marketing teams asked: “Is there a point in implementing Schema Markup if rich results can’t be achieved?” The answer, unequivocally, is yes.

Prioritizing the Semantic Value of Schema Markup

Even without the immediate gratification of rich results, Schema Markup remains important for organizations looking to future-proof for search.

Generative AI search engines like SGE and Bing Chat revolutionized user search experiences. They presented multi-modal answers and provided follow-up questions to user queries.

However, the underlying search algorithms that power both the regular search engines and generative AI search engines have shifted from lexical to semantic. Instead of matching keywords, search engines assess the meaning and intent behind a query, providing searchers with results of the closest relevance.

Using Schema Markup to Define Your Entities

Schema Markup plays a crucial role in this understanding by allowing web publishers to define the entities on the site and showcase the relationships between entities in the form of a content knowledge graph.

In the past, when rich result eligibility was the main focus, many organizations would implement Schema Markup, but not in a manner that defined the relationship between the primary things (aka entities) on their pages. They simply added the minimum Schema Markup required to be eligible for the desired rich result rather than applying connected Schema Markup to improve search engine understanding.

In this new world of AI and Large Language models, Schema Markup for rich results alone is insufficient. By implementing proper connected Schema Markup and establishing connections between the entities on your site and on external authoritative knowledge bases, you are creating your organization’s content knowledge graph.

Building Your Content Knowledge Graph

Your content knowledge graph is a structured information data layer that can help search engines disambiguate the entities mentioned on your site. By providing this, you can shape how search engines understand your content, gaining greater control over how users perceive your brand. This ultimately provides users with more accurate and relevant search results.

The value of Schema Markup in ensuring your content is correctly understood is now significantly more strategic than just achieving rich results.

October, November, & December 2023 – Evidence From Google That Rich Results Hold Semantic Value

Don’t believe us? Google is also telling us that the value of Schema Markup is for understanding AND rich results. Search News released a new episode in early October 2023. During the episode, John Mueller talked about how some rich results would go away – in reference to the deprecation of How To rich results and reduction in FAQ rich results – and new rich results would be introduced. And boy did they hold true to their word.

Over the span of October, November, and December 2023, Google rolled out 6 new rich results:

• Oct 16: Added Vehicle Listing structured data documentation.
• Nov 15: Added Course Info structured data documentation.
• Nov 27: Added Profile page structured data documentation, Discussion forum structured data documentation, and expanded recommendations for Q&A Page structured data documentation.
• Nov 29: Added new Organization structured data documentation
• Dec 4: Added Vacation Rental structured data documentation

Structured Data Offering a Mutually Beneficial Relationship Between Google and SEOs

Google’s ongoing rich result opportunities highlight the symbiosis between search engines and SEOs. By offering rich results in exchange for detailed structured data, Google stimulates the supply of credible information, contributing to the development of the semantic web. It’s a win-win!

Google grants rich results as a reward for making it easy and less costly for search engines to comprehend the content on your website. By providing Schema Markup, you inform them about the content and how it relates to other topics on the web and on your website. By providing this information, the search engines don’t have to process the data to infer the meaning or relationships.

This helps search engines understand content without having to spend as many computing resources. This incentive provides content creators with the motivation needed to support the semantic initiatives crucial for the future of search.

Let’s look at two of the new rich results, Profile Page and Organization, and call out their characteristics that emphasize the value they bring to the semantic web.

Profile Page & Organization Structured Data Helps With Disambiguation

Among the newly introduced rich results, Profile Page and Organization stand out, playing a crucial role in disambiguating entities such as organizations, individuals, and authors within your content. These elements tie into E-E-A-T and empower you to assert greater control over structured data, articulating your identity and authority in connection to your content.

Organization structured data enables search engines to understand context, even when your website does not visually present certain information. For instance, properties recommended within the Organization structured data guidelines, such as identifier codes (i.e. duns, taxID, etc.), may not be visible to users but aid Google in disambiguating and identifying your organization within your content.

This background information adds a layer of context, facilitating search engines in relating your content to search queries and other web information through a knowledge graph.

Vehicle Listing and Vacation Rental Structured Data (Feed)

Last but not least, we’re seeing structured data become a data feed. The introduction of the new Vehicle Listing and Vacation Rental Structured Data supports this concept. You can achieve the Vehicle Listing rich result by adding structured data to your site or uploading a vehicle listing feed file to Google. Similarly, you can now achieve the Vacation Rental rich result by adding structured data, instead of the historical method of uploading an XML list feed to Google. Unlike list feeds, structured data is a cleaner way for data providers to transfer data to Google.

While the consecutive release of new rich results is exciting, it’s crucial to recognize that the purpose of structured data has expanded beyond merely attaining rich results, particularly in the past year. Google’s introduction of these rich results reflects a clear effort to improve the semantic nature of the search experience.

As SEOs, our focus should shift towards creating semantically understood content, empowered by Schema Markup.

The Value of Schema Markup Today: Prioritizing Semantic Understanding

Schema Markup remains valuable for search engines in 2023, emphasizing the critical need to prioritize the semantic aspect of structured data over just achieving rich results. While rich results come and go, semantic understanding is instrumental in laying the groundwork for contextual content that is poised to shape the future of search.

By connecting entities and developing a Knowledge Graph, organizations can ground Language Models (LLMs), support internal AI initiatives, and build authority by linking to authoritative databases. Schema Markup, originally created for search engine comprehension, continues to play a vital role in navigating the dynamic landscape of digital marketing.

In essence, Schema Markup not only provides quick wins through achieving rich results but also sets the stage for ongoing and agile content optimization as search evolves.

Interested in learning how you can apply Schema Markup to stay agile in search? Get started here.

The post The Evolving Role of Schema Markup: From Rich Results to AI Understanding appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

On December 4, 2023, Google released Vacation Rental structured data. If your website features vacation rentals, adding this new structured data markup to your site can enhance the visibility of your listings on the search engine results page (SERP).

History of Vacation Rentals in Search

Prior to this, Google’s SERP already featured an enhanced search function for vacation rentals. When you search for ‘vacation rentals in Vancouver’, for instance, you’ll find rental prices along with filtering options to adjust dates and occupancy.

The recent expansion in visual representation within search results marks a significant change. Previously, this feature wasn’t available through structured data, and even if you incorporated structured data on your site, appearing on the enhanced feature wasn’t guaranteed.

Now that Google supports vacation rental structured data, it provides greater control over the appearance of your vacation rental in search results. While Google historically utilized an existing XML feed method, which remains a viable choice for large partners and those managing multiple domains and brands, the use of structured data offers a simpler and more flexible approach.

What You Need To Know About Vacation Rental Structured Data

Vacation rental structured data is structured data you can add to your vacation rental listing pages to achieve a rich result on Google. The vacation rental rich results will provide users with information about the listing, such as the name, description, reviews, location, images, and more in the search results.

What are the Required and Recommended Properties?

To be eligible for the rich result, you must include all the required properties.

However, we recommend including as many of the recommended properties as possible. These details are not just about what appears on the rich result visually; detailed listings contribute to effective filtering for users’ specific needs.

By including properties like addressLocality and numberOfBeds, your listing becomes more relevant to targeted queries. For instance, someone searching for “vacation rentals in downtown toronto” can be shown listings that have specified the locality of downtown Toronto in their structured data.

Be sure to refer to Google’s Structured Data Documentation as a guideline for recommended and required properties for Vacation Rental structured data.

Certain required and recommended properties will also call for users to nest other Types of markup in the property. For example, one of the required properties to be eligible for this rich result is ‘containsPlace’, and Google expects you to nest the Accommodation Type under that property. This means that you need to create markup for the Accommodation Type, before linking it to the containsPlace property.

Nesting your markup and connecting entities using your Schema Markup can be challenging especially if you are new to implementing structured data. If you’re looking to implement proper vacation rental structured data on your site, our Schema App team can help.

Eligibility Criteria

It’s important to note that eligibility criteria apply, and this rich result is exclusively reserved for vacation rentals, not hotels.

Additionally, you can only list vacation rentals on Google if you are:

• A registered property management business with a direct booking website
• Already listed on a booking site that’s integrated with vacation rentals on Google

Shared rooms, partial houses, and peer-to-peer rentals aren’t currently eligible for integration.

So what does Google consider a “vacation rental property”? In order to be eligible, your property must:

• Provide a furnished space that is private to the guest/renter
• Accept short-term, overnight reservations
• Be managed and cleaned between stays

Expanding on these criteria, there are three different groups that can deliver vacation rental listings:

• Connectivity partner: Ex. Hostaway – a tool that manages vacation rentals across multiple channels
• Property managers: Ex. You run your own B&B
• Online travel agencies and metasearch providers: Ex. Aggregator sites like Expedia

This feature is limited to websites that meet certain criteria, and additional steps are required in order to integrate. Once you’ve completed the Vacation Rental Partner integration, you simply need to mark up your site with the appropriate structured data, allowing Google to crawl it to generate the listing feed. To delve into the specifics and ensure compliance, review Google’s Starter Guide Overview.

What Does a Vacation Rental Rich Result Look Like?

Visually, this rich result has not changed dramatically from the pre-existing search enhancements that closely resembled this new rich result. What has changed is how you can achieve this enhanced result through structured data.

The Impact of Achieving a Vacation Rental Rich Result

Achieving this rich result comes with many implications, some more beneficial than others.

On the positive side, it contributes to a zero-click search experience, aligning with Google’s user-centric focus. However, the flip side is the potential for intensified price comparison, which can be both advantageous and detrimental. While it facilitates user comparison and enhances visibility, it may pose a challenge by demanding more competitive pricing.

In addition to this, the rise of zero-click searches will impact aggregator sites, as users find answers directly on the SERP, potentially rendering aggregator sites obsolete.

In a highly competitive space like vacation rentals, this rich result becomes a game-changer. Without it, smaller businesses might struggle to rank on the SERP, particularly when contending with larger sites boasting higher domain authority and substantial investments in SEO and advertising.

Given the existing trend of price comparison across various platforms, this rich result simply expedites the inevitable research and decision-making process for users.

To stay competitive in the search landscape, it is imperative to implement this markup, ensuring your vacation rental business remains visible and relevant to user needs.

Implement Vacation Rental Structured Data On Your Site

With the many changes happening in search and with rich results coming and going at an unprecedented rate, maintaining an agile structured data solution is crucial.

The Schema App Highlighter ensures the dynamic and continuous updating of your structured data to align with any content or pricing changes made to your site. This agility is key to staying competitive, as outdated Schema Markup can jeopardize your eligibility for the targeted rich result.

For efficiency and adaptability, we recommend leveraging the Schema App Highlighter to seamlessly synchronize your markup with evolving website content and structured data requirements. Interested in learning more about the Schema App solution? Click here to get started.

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On November 29, 2023, Google announced they expanded their markup support for organization details. This means they’re using more properties from Schema.org’s Organization type to showcase the relevant information on Google’s knowledge panels and other visual elements such as Attribution.

This announcement comes two days after they introduced Profile Page and Discussion Forum rich results. Let’s dive in.

What You Need To Know About Organization Structured Data

Organization Structured Data is used to describe an organization (like a corporation, NGO, or school). It is often added to a website’s home page or about page since these pages tend to contain important information about an organization.

Previously, Google only supported Logo rich results for the Organization type. This required web publishers to use the logo and url properties to feature an organization’s logo in search results.

However, this update expands the number of properties that Google will support for the Organization type. In addition to logo and url, Google recommends web publishers use properties such as:

• name
• description
• legalName
• sameAs
• address
• duns
• taxID
• And more.

As part of this update, Google has also merged the documentation for Logo structured data with the Organization structured data feature guide. You can test your Organization structured data using Google’s Rich Results Test to determine if your markup is valid for the associated rich result.

Do you need to add all the recommended properties for Organization structured data? Probably not.

Most of the recommended properties are pretty straightforward. However, certain recommended properties, in particular, the identifier properties – iso6523Code, duns, leiCode, naics, globalLocationNumber, vatID, and taxID – may not be present on your website since they aren’t usually relevant to website visitors.

It is a general structured data best practice to only add Schema Markup for content that exists on the page itself. However, identifiers, like the ones listed above aren’t typically something that users visiting your site would be looking for.

Conversely, Google can use this information to consolidate the various identifiers as a single Organization entity in their Knowledge Graph. In cases like this, the content of these properties does not have to be visible to users on your website for you to add them in your markup.

Google is more strict about the visibility of content for rich results like Products and Review Snippets, which are more prone to fraudulent representation that can undermine consumer trust. However, metadata like identifiers is more critical for Google’s semantic understanding of entities than for the visual representation in the SERPs.

What you get from implementing Organization structured data

Adding Organization markup to your site will make it eligible to be shown on knowledge panels like the new merchant knowledge panel or other visual elements like Attribution. That way, users can easily find accurate information about your organization on Google.

Historically, the knowledge panels that appear on the right side of the SERP feed off data from Google’s knowledge graph and other sources like Wikipedia and authoritative websites. But with this update, Google can now tap into your structured data to provide users with even more accurate information about your organization.

The information in your Organization markup is arguably more accurate than an external source like Wikipedia because your organization owns the website and controls the information that appears there. Your structured data should be a trustworthy source, provided it is descriptive and up-to-date.

Structured Data to Reflect More E-E-A-T

These recent rich result updates underline Google’s ongoing prioritization of high-quality content from authoritative and trustworthy sources. Particularly at a time when AI-generated content is becoming more widespread, evidence of trustworthiness and reputation for the Organizations and People authoring and publishing content is paramount.

The Discussion Forum documentation states that markup for this type is used in features like Discussions and Forums and Perspectives, the latter of which surfaces “hidden gems” of unique expertise on a topic from those hard-to-find places.

Both the Profile Page and Discussion Forum structured data documentation include recommended properties for InteractionCounter to indicate things like the number of other accounts being followed, the number of likes of other entities’ posts, and the number of posts for a Person or Organization. These are properties that humans often reference when gauging the authority or trustworthiness of a source, so it would make sense that Google would want simplified access to this information in the form of structured data as well.

Google’s documentation for Article structured data now also recommends marking up author pages with profile page structured data.

This indicates two things:

1. Google wants more information about authors connected to the articles they write
2. Google is consuming structured data from multiple URLs about those authors

In essence, high-quality content from trusted sources is much more effective for keeping users happy with the search results they receive, but it’s also effective for training AI. Whether Google is focusing on advancing in the AI field, or trying to get a handle on the wild west of AI content proliferating on the web, it’s logical for them to encourage the application of structured data for types and properties that contribute to this effort.

Conclusion

In the October Google Search News Update, John Mueller recommended that SEOs “use a CMS hosting platform or plugin that makes it easy for you to add and remove structured data” to save time and make quick changes.

All these updates further demonstrate how important it is to have an agile structured data solution to stay ahead of your competitors. Furthermore, it is equally crucial to implement your structured data correctly and keep it up-to-date with Google’s changing requirements. This significantly impacts how Google understands your organization as an entity and how the information about your organization shows up in the SERP.

With the right expertise and agility to implement structured data on your site, you can leverage these new structured data opportunities to control how your brand is represented on the SERP and improve the search engine’s understanding of your content for more relevant search results.

Need help implementing an agile and scalable structured data solution across your site? Contact us today to learn more about our end-to-end Schema Markup solution.

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