[[{"@type":["BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-app-news\/how-to-rich-results-removed-on-google-search\/#BlogPosting","@context":{"@vocab":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","kg":"http:\/\/g.co\/kg"},"url":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-app-news\/how-to-rich-results-removed-on-google-search\/","inLanguage":[{"@type":"Language","@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-app-news\/how-to-rich-results-removed-on-google-search\/#BlogPosting_inLanguage_Language","name":"English"}],"mentions":[{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing19"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing5"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing3"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing13"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing6"}],"audience":"https:\/\/schema.org\/PeopleAudience","publisher":[{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/#Organization"}],"name":"Say Goodbye to How-To Rich Results on Google","articleBody":"On September 14, Google announced that they\u2019ve officially removed How-To rich results on desktop and deprecated How-To rich results entirely as part of their efforts to simplify search. They will also be \u2018dropping the How-to search appearance, rich result report, and support in the Rich results test in 30 days\u2019. The How-To structured data feature guide is also no longer available on their site.\nThis past August, Google first removed How-To rich results on mobile. As a result, we saw a huge decline in clicks and impressions for How-To rich results across our customers. This updated announcement will undoubtedly remove all traffic and impressions from the rich result.\n\n \n\nWhy is this happening?\nPrior to this change, content publishers would add HowTo Schema Markup to pages with instructional content that defined the steps needed to successfully complete a task. If appropriate, Google would then award the page with a How-To rich result that outlined the steps in the SERP.\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11973 size-us_600_0 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-600x696.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1\" alt=\"Example of a How-To rich result on mobile\" width=\"600\" height=\"696\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-600x696.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-259x300.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 259w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-883x1024.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 883w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-768x890.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-518x600.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 518w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-80x93.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 80w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-173x200.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 173w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-200x232.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-52x60.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 52w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-86x100.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 86w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-140x162.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 140w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-400x464.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-220x255.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 220w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-100x116.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-450x522.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 450w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382-150x174.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1 1199w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&w=684&ssl=1 684w, https:\/\/ezk8caoodod.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Home-Hardware-HowTo-Rich-Result-e1622046045382.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&w=1140&ssl=1 1140w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/>\nHowever, we\u2019ve often found How-To rich results to be somewhat controversial. On one hand, rich results were supposed to increase user engagement and drive click-through rates to a site. On the other hand, How-To rich results usually provided users with the answer directly on the SERP, resulting in a lower click-through rate. As such, How-To rich results were not as widely adopted as other rich results like product, review snippets and FAQ.\nThat said, How-To rich results still provided users with valuable information on the SERP and could help organizations improve their customer journey. So why is Google removing this rich result from the SERP?\nIn their announcement, Google mentioned that this was a continued effort on their end to \u2018simplify search results\u2019. This year, Google has made some significant changes to the SERP.\n\nThey introduced Search Generative Experience (SGE) \u2013 their generative AI-powered search interface.\nThey stopped awarding video rich results to pages that did not have a video as their main content.\nThey stopped awarding FAQ rich results on both desktop and mobile for most websites and will only be showing FAQ rich results for well-known, authoritative government and health websites.\nThey deprecated How-To rich results entirely from the SERP.\n\nHowever, this begs the question: What does Google mean by simplifying search results?\nAre they trying to declutter the search engine results page? They did reduce the visibility of video and FAQ rich results in the past few months, possibly because people were abusing them. However, the SERP is still littered with advertisements, making it tougher for users to identify the most appropriate result for their query.\nOr could they be simplifying search results that SGE can also provide? As seen in SEO expert, Glenn Gabe\u2019s tweet, the content from the same How-To was shown in SGE and in the first position in the SERP as a How-To rich result.\n\n\nOne of the glowing features of SGE is its ability to provide users with answers and additional relevant information that they might need. If you search up how to perform a task, SGE can provide you the steps to perform the task successfully and links to a few pages that also capture those steps.\nIf you search for the top Italian restaurants, SGE can provide you with a list of restaurants together with a map showing where they\u2019re located in proximity to you, and links to aggregator sites that also have a list of top Italian restaurants in your city. These are just two of the many examples of how SGE creates helpful experiences based on the wealth of information on the web.\nAt its core, Google\u2019s mission is to organize the world\u2019s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Rich results were first introduced to provide users with more useful information in search, help them make better decisions and find answers. It was also a way for Google to incentivize website owners to add structured data to their sites to help search engines understand the content on a page.\nBut with SGE providing the information in a simplified way, more rich results could be rendered obsolete in the coming years. That said, this does not mean that you should abandon adding Schema Markup to your site.\nWhat should you do next?\nSchema Markup helps machines understand and contextualize the content and information on your website.\nEven though you will no longer achieve a How-To rich result on your page, you should still add Schema Markup to your pages to futureproof your organization for search.\nThis is a paradigm shift that requires SEOs to think about the value of Schema Markup beyond rich results. \nOver the past few years, search algorithms have shifted from lexical to semantic search. Instead of ranking pages based on keyword matching, search engines are ranking pages based on the relevance of the concepts and entities in the page\u2019s content to the searcher\u2019s query.\nAnd how do you identify and define the entities on your website for search engines? You can define the entities on your website using Schema Markup.\nBy marking up the content on your site, you are helping search engines understand the concepts and entities on your website and providing them with contextual information about these entities. In return, they can better match your page to a query and ideally improve your ranking on search in the long run.\nIf you are interested in learning more about entities and semantic search, you can tune in to our recent webinar with Mike King or Schema Markup expert, Dave Ojeda\u2019s latest interview on iPullRank\u2019s Rankable podcast.\nGenerative AI search engines like SGE and the new Bing still face hallucination challenges resulting in inaccurate results. At Schema App, we\u2019ve been advising our customers to think about the semantic value of Schema Markup.\nInstead of implementing Schema Markup on a handful of pages for the sole purpose of achieving a rich result, you should implement Schema Markup across your site to define the entities and concepts on your site and link them to develop your very own marketing knowledge graph.\nKnowledge graphs are a structured and organized information data layer that can help search engines to improve the accuracy of their answers and provide your organization with a control point to inform generative AI on your web content. Your marketing knowledge graph can also be reused for other AI initiatives.\nAs the SEO industry continues to see changes from Google and on search, organizations need to prepare to stay ahead of the competition. If you are looking to learn more about semantic Schema Markup, we can help.\nContact us to see how we can help your organization build a marketing knowledge graph and future proof your organization for AI search.\nIf you are a Schema App customer with concerns regarding the changes in rich results, please get in touch with your Customer Success Manager to see how we can support your organization through these changes.","datePublished":"2023-09-15T20:00:21+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-app-news\/how-to-rich-results-removed-on-google-search\/","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-app-news\/how-to-rich-results-removed-on-google-search\/#BlogPosting_image_ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Say-Goodbye-to-How-To-Rich-Results-on-Google.png"}],"description":"Google has officially removed How-To rich results from search. 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