[[{"@type":["BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/common-questions-about-schema-markup-for-seo\/#BlogPosting","@context":{"@vocab":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","kg":"http:\/\/g.co\/kg"},"url":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/common-questions-about-schema-markup-for-seo\/","publisher":[{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/#Organization"}],"audience":"https:\/\/schema.org\/PeopleAudience","mentions":[{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing19"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing6"},{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/entity#Thing1"}],"inLanguage":[{"@type":"Language","@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/common-questions-about-schema-markup-for-seo\/#BlogPosting_inLanguage_Language","name":"English"}],"dateModified":"2024-04-26T16:18:42+00:00","headline":"Common Questions About Schema Markup for SEO","datePublished":"2024-04-26T16:16:05+00:00","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/common-questions-about-schema-markup-for-seo\/#BlogPosting_image_ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Common-Questions-About-Schema-Markup-for-SEO.png"}],"mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/common-questions-about-schema-markup-for-seo\/","name":"Common Questions About Schema Markup for SEO","articleBody":"In an era when search engines increasingly rely on semantic understanding and AI to generate results, Schema Markup has emerged as a vital SEO tactic for website owners striving to maintain visibility and relevance in search.\nHowever, 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.\nThis article addresses some of these common questions head-on, providing insights to help you understand Schema Markup\u2019s role in your SEO strategy to help you confidently implement it on your pages.\nLet\u2019s start with one of the most pressing questions newcomers to Schema Markup often ask\u2026\nDoes Schema Markup help SEO?\nYes. Schema Markup contributes to SEO by improving click-through rates (CTR), which can indirectly support conversions. It aids SEO efforts in two main ways.\nFirstly, 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\u2019s 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.\nIn 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.\nSecondly, 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.\nSpecific 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.\nOur 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.\nIs Schema Markup a search ranking factor?\nNo. Implementing Schema Markup does not directly impact your search rankings. However, it can indirectly impact rankings in certain ways.\nWhile Schema Markup is not a direct ranking factor \u2013 like quality content, page speed, or backlinks \u2013 implementing Schema Markup can enhance your website\u2019s appearance in the SERP by providing search engines with more clarity about your content, your organization and other associated entities.\nThis 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\u2019 relevant search queries, which could potentially improve your page\u2019s ranking.\nCan bad Schema Markup cause ranking loss?\nYes, it\u2019s possible. Incorrect or poorly implemented Schema Markup can negatively affect your website\u2019s search rankings.\nWhat constitutes \u201cbad\u201d Schema Markup?\nIt could be markup that\u2026\n\nDoesn\u2019t accurately reflect the content on your page, aka schema drift.\nGoes against Google\u2019s Content Guidelines \u2013 i.e. marking up invisible, irrelevant, or misleading content or engaging in other manipulative behaviors, which can be considered problematic.\n\nIf search engines encounter Schema Markup that is inaccurate, unclear, or violates their guidelines, they may ignore it or even penalize your site.\nSome ways incorrect Schema Markup can impact your rankings include:\n\nPenalties: 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.\nMisinterpretation: Incorrect Schema Markup can confuse search engines about your web pages\u2019 content and context. This can lead to misinterpretations and may cause search engines to display your site less prominently or inaccurately in search results.\nUser Experience: \u201cBad\u201d 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.\n\nCan duplicate Schema Markup affect rankings?\nWhile duplicate Schema Markup may not have a direct impact on rankings, it can diminish the effectiveness and clarity of your Schema Markup.\nWhat is duplicate markup?\nDuplicate 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\u2019s 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.\nThis confusion may reduce the likelihood of your page being awarded that result, resulting in uncertainty and potentially incorrect information on the SERP.\nTo conclude, duplicate markup may make your markup less effective if:\n\nThe intent of the page is unclear\nThere is conflicting information\n\nCan there be two Schema Markup blocks on one page?\nYes, but let\u2019s 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\u2019t always possible given the hierarchy of entities on a page.\nFor instance, a Product Detail Page may have Product markup alongside BreadCrumb markup as primary entities. Since the breadcrumb isn\u2019t related to the product entity, nesting it under the top-level Product markup doesn\u2019t make sense.\nHowever, if the page contains reviews and ratings related to the product, it\u2019s 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.\nUltimately, the goal is to clarify what\u2019s on the page and how these content elements relate to each other. If there\u2019s a connection, nesting is recommended; if not, having separate markup on a page is acceptable.\nWhile Google won\u2019t 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.\nHow can I measure the performance of Schema Markup on my website?\nHow you measure performance may depend on the kinds of markup you\u2019re 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.\nThere are a variety of tools you can use for this purpose, such as:\nGoogle Search Console\nGoogle Search Console (GSC) provides insights into how Google indexes your markup, quality improvements, and offers limited ROI reporting. Let\u2019s dive into the feature within GSC that best helps you monitor and maintain Schema Markup.\nSearch Results Performance Report by Search Appearance\nThe 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.\nThere 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\u2019s 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.\nSchema Performance Analytics\nThe 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.\nAdditionally, SPA\u2019s Page Level Report is not limited to 1000 rows of data. Our team imports the entire set of metrics using Google Search Console\u2019s API so you can analyze the entirety of your dataset with ease.\nA recent addition to Schema Performance Analytics is the \u201cIncremental Clicks from Rich Results\u201d feature.\nThis 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.\nBy 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.\nYou can combine these platforms and methods to get a well-rounded overview of your Schema Markup\u2019s performance. By assessing its impact on your website\u2019s performance, you can make informed decisions to optimize its implementation for better results.\nYou can learn how to calculate ROI from Schema Markup by reading this article. \nWhen will I start to see the impact of Structured Data in organic search?\nThe timeline for observing results from structured data in organic search depends on your markup strategy and the result you want to achieve.\nFor 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:\n\nMarkup deployment: Your team\u2019s 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.\nMarkup 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.\nGoogle 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.\n\nWhen 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.\nHowever, 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.\nHow can we separate the impact of Schema Markup from other SEO initiatives?\nIdentifying 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.\nTo 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.\nThere are, however, some strategies to consider:\n\nClear Team Communication! To isolate the impact of Schema Markup from the work of your content team, it\u2019s important to know what your team is working on that could impact results, including URLs, types of content and site improvements made, etc.\nDo 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.\nAcknowledge Challenges: Sometimes, it might be challenging to completely isolate Schema Markup\u2019s impact from other initiatives. SEO is a cross-functional industry, and accepting the reality that shared efforts lead to shared results may be necessary.\n\nSupporting you on your Schema Markup journey\nUnderstanding 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\u2019s goals.\nIf you\u2019re 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. 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