Google’s Search Liaison cleared the fact that structured data is not necessary and has no impact on rankings in web pages. Danny Sullivan comes with these after a controversy been created that structured data is helpful for ranking in Google search.
Structured Data
Structured data refers to any information that resides in a fixed section inside a file or report. This includes data contained in relational databases and spreadsheets.
The Controversy
A food blogger mentioned in a tweet that Google is sending her a notice to add structured data for calorie counts to the recipes mentioned. The blogger misunderstood by thinking not adding structured data will result in not appearing her content on the Google search pages.
Tweet
Me: *Trying to create a food blog that doesn’t participate in diet culture.*
Google: Enable calorie counts on your recipe cards or risk not appearing in search results! pic.twitter.com/XQVKo4ofXC
— Rebecca Eisenberg (@ryeisenberg) January 15, 2020
It was clearly mentioned by Google that adding structured data is just a suggestion, not a necessary requirement.
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Response From Google