Structured Data - Change History & Alerts

Google has simplified how breadcrumb structured data is used in Search. Breadcrumb rich results will no longer appear on mobile devices and will only be available on desktop. This change aims to streamline mobile search results while maintaining desktop functionality.

Google updated the Review snippet rich result documentation, adding a recommendation about accepting ratings and reviews. They recommend implementing a setup that only accepts ratings and reviews that are accompanied by a review comment and author's name, as this approach can help your users understand the context for a given rating.

Google updated the Image metadata documentation to include information on how they extract C2PA metadata for use in Search. If an image contains C2PA metadata, Google can extract those details and may show information in the "About this image" feature, such as how the image was created or if it was edited with AI tools.

Google have updated the Merchant listing documentation to add Certification markup support. They also announced that, starting in April 2025, they're replacing the EnergyConsumptionDetails type with the more robust Certification type, as the new type supports more countries and a broader scope of certifications.

Google added the priceType property to the merchant listing documentation, to make it easier for merchants to specify sale pricing through structured data and bring parity with price features in Merchant Center. Also added new sale pricing examples.

Added support for member programs, and various build improvements:

• Added support for loyalty programs through new classes MemberProgram, MemberProgramTier, and enumeration TierBenefitEnumeration. Also added properties isTierOf, hasTiers, hasMemberProgram, program, hasTierBenefit, and validForMemberTier.
• Added new enumeration value RegularPrice for enumeration PriceTypeEnumeration.
• Added new enumeration values Reserved and MadeToOrder for enumeration ItemAvailability.
• Fixed documentation for duration, which must be specified in ISO 8601 duration format.
• Cleaned up PaymentMethod class.
• Removed non-existing link to count under statType.
• Added Organization to range of founder.

Google updated their documentation to add a new recommended property of ineligibleRegion, which allows you to specify a region where the video isn't allowed (if applicable). If not specified, then Google assumes the video is allowed everywhere.

Note that Google also supports the regionsAllowed property, and suggests you add either ineligibleRegion or regionsAllowed, whichever makes sense for your site.

You can embed IPTC photo metadata directly inside an image, and Google will extract the recommended property Digital Source Type. They ar now able to extract the IPTC NewsCode of compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia (The image is a composite of trained algorithmic media with some other media, such as with inpainting or outpainting operations).

Google updated their documentation, adding MerchantReturnPolicy to allow organizations to specify a general return policy for an Organization as a whole.

Google removed the search feature for Home Activities, which no longer appears in Google Search results. The Home Activities rich result was designed to help people discover activities that they can do from home - for example for upcoming video livestreams or online events.

Adding support for GS1 Digital Link and a few smaller updates:

• Added new property hasGS1DigitalLink for use on Product, Offer, Organization and Place to allow the specification of GS1 digital links.
  
• Added new property certificationRating for use on Certification to allow the specification of a certification rating with a scale.
• Add existing property acceptedPaymentMethod for use on Organization to allow the specification of the payment method(s) a business accepts.
• Add build-time spell checks using codespell.

Google updated their documentation for the Video rich result to remove details of the 'Video host carousel', which was a limited access feature that Google decided 'wasn't useful for the ecosystem at scale.'

Google clarify that there is no harm in leaving the markup on your pages, even though the SERP feature has been removed.

Google updated the Product structured data documentation by adding new 3DModel markup support for merchant listings, allowing site owners to link a 3D model to a specific product (on pages with multiple products).

Google updated the Recipe rich result documentation by removing the section on 'Guided Recipes', which was a Google Assistant feature that has now been deprecated. Previously, recipeIngredient and recipeInstructions were required properties for Guided Recipes but only recommended properties for Google Search, so the documentation now also reflects that these are just recommended properties.

This is a brand new carousel rich result that's in beta, which is a list-like rich result that people can scroll horizontally to see more entities from a given site (also known as a host carousel). Each tile in the carousel may have information from your site about the price, rating, and images for entities on the page.

To be eligible for this beta rich result, you need to add ItemList structured data in combination with at least one one of the following supported structured data items:

• LocalBusiness (and its subtypes, e.g. Restaurant or Hotel)
• Product
• Event

This is a brand new rich result designed to better support product variant scenarios for ecommerce sites. They also added a new isVariantOf property to the product structured data documentation and clarified that Google support product variants with distinct URLs. The purpose of this update is to enhance the support offered to e-commerce websites in managing product variants.

Recognizing the complexity and significance of product variants for e-commerce, particularly in categories such as apparel and electronics, Google is providing expanded examples and guidance on implementation of product variant structured data.

Google updated the Merchant listings return policy documentation, clarifying when to use FreeReturn versus ReturnShippingFees as value for returnFees for product returns, in order to better support more granular shipping and return fee scenarios.

Restoring Physician subtype of MedicalBusiness:

• Clarifying that PhysiciansOffice is a subtype of MedicalBusiness.

Added support for Certifications and a few smaller updates:

• Added Certification to allow the specification of certifications for places, organizations, products, and persons. Compatible with gs1:CertificationDetails.
  
• Added colorSwatch.
  
• Added KeepProduct for ReturnMethodEnumeration.
  

Added vocabulary for describing types of digital sources (in collaboration with IPTC), and clarifying subtypes of Physician:

• Added IndividualPhysician, PhysiciansOffice as subtypes of Physician to clarify the longstanding ambiguity between these two different interpretations of the Physician type. Amended occupationalCategory to be applicable here and added usNPI for use with NPI identifiers in the US.
  
• To help address situations around the responsible use of generative AI, we add a "digital source type" vocabulary based on IPTC's definitions. This consists of a property digitalSourceType, an enumeration type IPTCDigitalSourceEnumeration, and a set of 14 coded values such as TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource mapping directly to the IPTC list.
  

Google amended the documentation for the Product search feature, adding support for the suggestedAge property as an alternative to suggestedMaxAge and suggestedMinAge, and clarified the list of possible values for age ranges.

This is in order to make it easier and more flexible for people to specify age ranges for a product (Also, the previous wording was confusing and didn't map well to the Merchant Center documentation about product age ranges).

Google updated the Discussion Forum and Q&A page documentation to explicitly clarify that author URLs are recommended.

Google updated the Organization documentation to explain that telephone and email can be specified at the Organization level besides contactPoint.

This is a brand new rich result designed for sites that list holiday rental inventory. When you add structured data to your vacation rental listing pages, this means that users can see listing information in the search results; such as the name, description, images, location, rating, reviews and more.

Note: This feature is limited to sites that meet certain eligibility criteria and additional steps are required to complete the integration. To learn more about how to list your vacation rentals on Google, visit the integration starter guide.

Google removed the Logo documentation for the Search Gallery, and have merged this into a new rich result, Organization, which also includes more organizational information (such as contact info, legal name, and business identifiers).