General recommendations for structured data for your Google website

General recommendations for structured data for your Google website

In order for your site to claim to display advanced results in the Google search engine, it is important to observe the content policy for Google Search, which includes our rules to combat spam. In addition to this, this page provides general recommendations on structured data that must be observed so that the page can appear as an expanded result in Google Search.

If an error in structured data is found on your page, this can lead to a manually assigned action. Manually assigned actions mean that the page loses the opportunity to appear as an extended result, but this does not affect the page position in the Google search ranking. To check the presence of manually assigned actions, open a report on manually assigned actions in Search Console.

Important: Google does not guarantee that your structured data will be displayed in search results, even if your page is correctly marked according to the test of advanced results.

Typical reasons why structured data are not displayed in the search for Google

  • The use of structured data allows you to add functionality, but does not guarantee its display. The Google algorithm selects the search results to create the best user experience, taking into account many factors, such as the search history, location and type of device. In some cases, Google may consider that one feature is more suitable than the other, or it is possible that the usual text result will be better.
  • Structured data do not correspond to the main content of the page or can be misleading.
  • Structured data contain errors that were not detected using the test of advanced results.
  • Content that structured data refer to is hidden from the user.
  • The page does not comply with the recommendations on the structured data described on this page, as well as recommendations for a specific type of structured data or content policy for Google Search.

Technical recommendations for your Google site

You can test compliance with the technical recommendations using the Rich Results Test tool and the URL Insption tool that will help identify most technical errors.

Structured data format for your Google site

In order for your site to have Eligible for advanced results in searching for Google, use one of three supported marking formats:

  • Json-ld (recommended)
  • Microdata
  • RDFA

Availability of pages for your site in Google

Do not block pages with structured data for Googlebot using Robots.txt, Noindex or other access control methods.

Quality recommendations for your site in Google

These quality recommendations can not always be tested using an automatic tool. Violation of these recommendations may prevent the correctly displayed data in the form of an extended result in the Google search engine or even lead to the fact that the data will be marked as spam.

Content for your site in Google

  • Follow the policy of fighting spam to search for Google.
  • Provide relevant information. We will not show an expanded result for outdated content, which no longer matters.
  • Provide the original content that you created or your users.
  • Do not mark the content that is not visible to page users. For example, if the json-ld marking describes the contractor, then the page text must describe the same performer.
  • Do not use marking for an irrelevant or misleading content, for example, for false reviews or information that is not related to the main topic of the page.
  • Do not use structured data for deception or misleading users. Do not fake an identity or organization and do not distort your property, affiliation or the main goal.
  • Content in structured data should also follow additional recommendations or policies of content, as indicated in the documentation for a specific function. For example, content in vacancies should follow the content policies to accommodate vacancies.

Relevance for your site in Google

Structured data should accurately reflect the content of the page. Here are a few examples of irrelevant data:

  • A sports site offering direct broadcasts marks them as local events.
  • The site about woodworking, marking instructions as recipes.

Complete marking for your site in Google

  • Indicate all the mandatory properties that are listed in the documentation for your specific type of expanded result. Elements in which there are no mandatory properties cannot be displayed as advanced results.
  • The more recommended properties you indicate, the higher the quality of the result for users. For example, users prefer vacancies with clearly indicated salaries than those where the salary is not indicated. Users prefer recipes with real reviews and real grades (note that reviews or ratings not written by real users can lead to a manually assigned action).

Location for your site in Google

  • Place the structured data on the page that they describe, unless otherwise specified in the documentation.
  • If you have duplicate pages with the same content, it is recommended to place the same structured data on all these pages, and not just on the canonical.

Specificity for your site in Google

  • Use the most specific applicable types and names of properties defined in Schema.org for your markup.
  • Follow all the additional recommendations specified in the documentation for your type of expanded result.

Images for your site in Google

  • When specifying the image as the properties of structured data, make sure that the image corresponds to the content of the page. For example, if you determine the image of the image for Newsarticle, the image should be related to this news.
  • All URL images in structured data should be available for bypass and indexation. Otherwise, Google Search will not be able to find and display them on the search results page.

Many elements on the page for your site in Google

When the page contains several types of content, for example, a recipe, video with this recipe and information about bread crumbs for navigation on the site, all these elements can be marked using structured data. This helps search engines, such as Google, it is better to understand the content of the page. When you add several elements, Google Search gets a more complete picture of what the page is about and can display it in different search functions.

Google Search understands several elements on the page, regardless of whether you want to invest elements or indicate each element separately:

  • Invested elements: when there is one main element, and additional elements are grouped under it. This is useful, for example, for grouping related elements (for example, a recipe with video and reviews).
  • Separate elements: when each element is a separate block on the page. For example, recipe and video. If you do not bind these elements, Google Search may not understand what the video is associated with the recipe.

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