Google’s John Mueller clears several points about how Google uses structured data. He offered insights and explained the importance of the structured data as a Google signal.
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Extra Structured Data
Google’s John Mueller started by clearing out what kind of structured data was taken as extra. He gave attention to the data types of structured data and general information. The first issue taken was about to use WebPage structured data type rather than a more particular data type:
The thing is a lot of "extra" SD is super obvious. "This is a webpage", well, that's shocking, seeing we're crawling webpages. Lots of other SD is already clear from the page text (Is it a Ford car or a Ford president? No need for SD unless you're really creative in writing).
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) December 5, 2020
According to Mueller the WebPage structured data type is taken as very general and super obvious.
Statement By Schema.org About WebPage Structured Data Type
Every web page is implicitly assumed to be declared to be of type WebPage…
That means that you don’t need to use structured data to show Google that a webpage is a webpage, it’s implied. So that basically frees you up to use a more particular structured data type.
Structured Data For Google Two Kinds
- Rich Results Structured Data
- Non-rich Results Structured Data
Rich results structured data may qualify search results listing that is enhanced, i.e. a rich result. Non-rich results do not qualify. There are also other structured data types that are non-rich results structured data that will not display rich results but are more particularly about webpages:
- AboutPage
- CheckoutPage
- CollectionPage
They will not qualify for any sort of rich results, while those exist. This does not mean that you can’t use the AboutPage structured data to convey to a search engine what that page is about, It is highly likely Google can already tell from the content that it’s an “about page.” A rich result is similar to the featured snippets that are displayed at the top of the webpage or stars shown in the search results for reviews. Structured data types that are not listed in Google’s developer pages are most likely to not qualify for a rich result. Those are non-rich results in structured data.
Non-rich Results Structured Data
John Mueller states that non-rich results structured data can be helpful in limited ways. He used the acronym RR to refer to Rich Results and SD to refer to Structured Data.
What about the non-RR SD that's not absolutely clear from the page? It can be helpful, but it's also limited in the extra value it provides. How do you rank something purely from SD hints? It's an extremely light signal. If you're worried, make the content more obvious.
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) December 5, 2020
Structured Data And Rich Results Types
Mueller reassured the value of structured data, specifically where it might be hard to accurately understand specific details.
I do see long-term value in SD for RR types where parsing the page is hard. Event dates? Venue phone numbers? Ratings & scale? Article date? It's possible, but hard + unique per page/site, and embarassing when we highlight it incorrectly.
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) December 5, 2020
Structured data is helpful for communicating data where it’s important to get it right, like phone numbers, ratings, and dates. But Mueller also stated that structured data is “extremely light” as a signal, a statement that might need justification as to what kind of signal he was referring to.
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