Structured Data - Change History & Alerts

Google updated the Product search feature documentation to detail the properties you can add to make your merchant listing eligible to show return policy information, including return fees and the window of time to return a product.

Google updated their Learning Video search feature documentation, adding a clarification for the required property educationalAlignment.

Now there is a new statement about including multiple values:

"While you may provide multiple educationalAlignment values, it is not guaranteed that all of these values will be used for Learning Video features. If multiple values are provided, and the feature can only use one educationalAlignment value, the feature uses the first value that you provide."

The job search experience is available on Google across different regions of the world. They removed support for South Korea from the region availability - read this article for an explanation why.

Google updated the documentation regarding the recommended property of text ("the text of the question that's being solved in the video"), which previously contained a red box stating 'The text property is required if the learningResourceType property is set to Problem walkthrough.' This has now been removed, so text falls back to just being a recommended property for all types of learning video.

Google updated the documentation to clarify which guidelines you need to follow in order to be eligible for rich results, and they specifically linked out to a list of structured data issues, which can result in a manual action.

Key moments is an enhancement feature for Video rich results, which allows users to navigate video segments like chapters in a book. If your video is hosted on your web page, you can enable key moments by using SeekToAction structured data. Google updated the documentation to clarify the languages this is supported for: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, French, Japanese, German, Turkish, Korean, Dutch, and Russian.

Google updated the Review snippet structured data to recommend using dot separators for decimal ratings. If you're currently using comma separators for decimal ratings in your markup, you'll still be eligible for review snippets. They do however recommend that you update your markup for a more accurate interpretation.

Changes in Core section:

• Added new examples for Blog and BlogPosting.
• Added URL to range of target property (used on Action types).
• Add Person as expected type to hiringOrganization.
• Add DateTime as expected type to expires.

Changes in Health-lifesci section:

• Make Drug and DietarySupplement inherit from Product.

Changes in Pending section:

• Added a checkoutPageURLTemplate property to carry template-ized information about checkout page URLs.
• Added existing properties height, width, depth, and weight for use on OfferShippingDetails to specify the shipping dimensions of a product.
• Added a new shippingOrigin property with expected values of type DefinedRegion for use on OfferShippingDetails.
• Added new property asin as a sub property of identifier with expected values of type Text or URL to represent Amazon Standard Identification Numbers. The asin property is primarily intended for use on type Product but can also be used on Offer and Demand.
• Added existing properties positiveNotes and negativeNotes for use on Product to allow the specification of (positive and negative) highlights for products sold online.

Google added new documentation which describes how you can use WebSite structured data to indicate your preferred site name, which currently appear in mobile Google Search results for the following languages: English, French, Japanese, and German.

They clarified that the generation of site names on the Google Search results page is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a site and references to it that appear on the web.

They use a number of sources from a site's homepage to automatically determine site names, including:

• WebSite structured data
• Content in <title> elements
• Heading elements, such as <h1> elements
• og:site_name

You can help improve the quality of the site name that's displayed for your page by adding WebSite structured data.

Google made a significant change to the Image License search feature, and changed the name of the search feature to Image metadata. Previously it could only be used on licensable images; by specifying license information for the images on your website through structured data, the image can display with a 'Licensable' badge on image thumbnails in Google Images.

Now, image metadata can be added for any image, so the required property that was previously licenseis now 'either creator or creditText or copyrightNotice or license.'

A number of additional recommended properties have also been added to support this:

• creator
• creator.name
• creditText
• copyrightNotice
• license

Google has expanded the eligibility for enhanced product experiences in Google Search through the use of Product structured data, which were previously only open to Merchant Center users. To help make the requirements easier to understand, they have also made significant updates to the Product structured data documentation.

The documentation changes include clarification on the different types of shopping experiences available and the result enhancements you can use to help your content to stand out in search results.

They also have expanded the examples to include:

• Product review page
• Shopping aggregator page
• Pros and cons
• Product page with an offer
• Product with an offer and shipping details
• Indicating free shipping
• Pricing
• Pricing with unit pricing measures
• Energy efficiency ratings

Google re-added the itemReviewed.datePublished property. This is a recommended property that was apparently removed accidentally as part of the previous update to the Fact Check structured data documentation (September 9th 2022).

Google removed datePublished as a recommended property from the Fact Check structured data documentation. Currently, date information isn't used in the Fact Check rich result.

Google added the full list of supported academic values for educationalLevel in the Learning Video structured data documentation.

Google updated the Local Business documentation to clarify how to specify multiple types: if you have multiple types, specify them in an array (additionalType isn't supported).

Google updated the Education Q&A structured data documentation, adding content guidelines;

• Education Q&A pages must follow the same content guidelines for Q&A pages.
• Your page must contain education related questions and answers. There must be at least one question and answer pairing on your page, and the answer must be related to and answer the user's question.
• You are responsible for the accuracy and quality of your Education Q&A pages through this feature. If a certain amount of your content is found to be inaccurate based on quality and pedagogical review processes, then all or a subset of your Q&A pages may not be eligible for this feature until you resolve the issues.

Google updated the Article structured data documentation to reflect that Article markup is open to all types of pages (as announced in 2020 with the page experience update).

The Product documentation includes the recommended property of gtin (Global Trade Identification Number) as an applicable global identifier. Google added the gtin12 property, which apparently had been supported previously, so this is a documentation change only. They also clarified that you can use the generic gtin property for all GTINs, but they recommend that you use the most specific one if possible.

The Product documentation includes the recommended property of gtin (Global Trade Identification Number) as an applicable global identifier. Google updated the documentation to clarify that the GTIN value must be in the numerical form, as they do not support the URL form for GTINs.

Google added quite a significant amount of new documentation for the Product search feature, clarifying how you can explicitly define the pros and cons of a product, which can then show up in the search results as an enhancement.

Currently only editorial product review pages are eligible for the pros and cons appearance in Search, not merchant product pages or customer product reviews.

Google modified their documentation to clarify that you must mark up at least three courses to be eligible for the Course rich result;

• The courses can be on separate detail pages, or in an all-in-one page.
• You must add Carousel markup to either a summary page or an all-in-one page (and they now provide an example for each of these).

This is not a new requirement; it was previously only documented in the Carousel documentation.

One of the required properties for JobPosting is jobLocation, and Google have just updated their documentation to clarify that you must also include the addressCountry property.

Google updated their documentation for the Product rich result, to clarify that Product rich results are only supported for pages that focus on a single product - including product variants where each product variant has a distinct URL.

This is a brand new rich result for websites that provide academic educational videos, aimed at helping students and teachers find learning-based video content.

Examples of acceptable content types include:

• Concept overview: The video is explaining a topic or concept.
• Problem walkthrough: The video shows the method or steps to solve an academic problem, such as a math or science word problem.
• Real life application: The video shows how a concept is applied or used in real life.
• Activity: The video shows a demonstration or application of a learning activity, such as an example, an improv game, a concept map, a peer review, or a forced debate.
• Science experiment: The video shows a science experiment.
• Lecture: The video shows a class, lecture, or webinar.
• How-to: The video provides a method or series of steps to do something. For video that are solving procedural STEM problems, use the Problem walkthrough type.
• Tips: The video is sharing tips and tricks.
• Professional learning: The video teaches skills related to job training.

The Learning Video rich result is available in English in all regions where Google Search is available. The feature is only available when searching for academic learning content on desktop and mobile.

This is a brand new rich result for websites that provide educational content, in addition to the Practice problems and Math solvers rich results added in March 2021. If you have flashcard pages, you can help students better find answers to educational questions by adding Quiz structured data to your flashcard pages. Adding structured data makes your content eligible to appear in the Education Q&A carousel in Google Search results, Google Assistant, and Google Lens results.

The Education Q&A carousel is available in English in all regions where Google Search is available. The feature is only available when searching for education-related topics on desktop and mobile.