Do you use structured data in any of your websites?

[MichaelCorfman]

Last week Search Engine Journal published the following article:

Just How Important is Structured Data in SEO?

According to the article, structured data is gaining adoption, but there is still a ways to go. And it has many benefits including higher click-through rates, greater search visibility, faster indexing, and voice search domination.

For anyone not familiar with structured data, Google Search Central offers and introduction:

Understand how structured data works

The different types of structured data are described at Schema.org, which was founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex.

An example of one common use is to provide structured data about products. For an affiliate structured data might be used in reviews of online gaming sites, allowing information such as star ratings to be communicated to Google in a way that they are displayed in search results.

For this week's poll I ask if you are currently using any structured data on your sites and if you have plans to use structured data in the future.

Besides voting in the poll, be sure to share your thoughts about structured data, how you are using it today, and how you think you might use it in the future.

Speaking for Casino City, we don't currently use any structured data, but we have near terms plans to use structured data in a variety of places. For example, in our directory of 9,000+ land-based gaming properties worldwide, we plan to use the LocalBusiness schema to publish various attributes of those properties.

Michael

[martinjin]

Using structured data is a must IMO. I use it for every possible page on my websites. As you mentioned in your post it works great for reviews by displaying stars in the SERP, the FAQ markup is pretty good too if used correctly.

Although you should be careful when using it, always check if its functioning correctly with the schema validator (just search schema validator in google, can't insert links in my posts currently) and check your Google Search Console for errors. I doubt it will have serious negative impact if not setup correctly but better be safe than sorry.

[nsa10]

I want to know the benefits of structured data

[universal4]

I want to know the benefits of structured data

As Michael mentioned, see the article he linked.

Last week Search Engine Journal published the following article:

Just How Important is Structured Data in SEO?

Rick
Universal4

[chaumi]

the validator link............

https://validator.schema.org/

[chaumi]

From testing with hand-coded (validated) schema (organization, website, webpage, review, article, FAQ, and two or three others) this year the results (for me, and of course they may be different for others) are heavily suggesting there is no ranking impact.

For moving a page up or down in the standard positions of search pages, it's like it just isn't there.

The potential of getting the zero slot/featured snippet is of course the main draw (and, of course, it can help with that - although I've also seen pages with featured snippet position that have no schema. There's a bit of an argument forming in my head that says maybe those pages that have the snippet and schema are there because in general they have naturally better content/better construction than those without). Debatable, and difficult to prove.

The other draw is getting all the other fancy info to show (stars, couple of FAQs etc). I'd be questioning whether this has any real greater value (for encouraging clicks) over say a well-crafted page title and/or description (assuming Google shows it, or chooses a 'good' description snippet, or doesn't 'negatively' amend the title)...but don't have access to data that would confirm or deny. Although that data will exist.

It's worth noting that (and again, on limited evidence, but I believe enough of it) a page already has to be in top 10 for any of the above to have an impact.

And.....there are plenty of search terms where the top ten (across multiple different terms, and in some case the number 1, 2 etc) have no schema (or limited/poor schema)

And....it takes time to do. If you hand code (which is best for a number of reasons) it's fairly intricate, easy to make minor mistakes that will invalidate the code, and quite difficult/time-consuming to work out where you went wrong and put it right (although...as martinjin said above...there don't appear to be any negative consequences of bad or flawed schema other than it's just ignored/has no value).

It is, of course, easier using the templated (but limited) schema options in the likes of Yoast, AIOSEO, etc

So, taking all that into account, some limited evidence (but just about enough, I believe) suggests that at this point.....

If you're a one man band (new or newish), some limited efforts are worthwhile on select pages but the better bulk of time is best spent on visible page content

If you're a one man band (aged/authoritative) and you have enough time to focus on schema and let the content addition/enhancement float for a bit, then more intensive efforts on schema are worthwhile

If you're a team/organization that has the scope to do it then it's pretty much a no brainer to go all out


There are other potential benefits to schema over the above that (I don't believe) seem to have fully materialized yet (but there's a chance they will in future).

Here's just one that sounds logical and that might actually be having impacts without anyone realizing...

...and it's around crawling.....

So, on the assumption we're talking about head schema (as opposed to alternative placed in the body...and actually, thinking about it, this may be one of the reasons Google says they prefer JSON)....

Say you have some sort of coding error at some point in the body that the crawler didn't like. Every time it got to that point it gave up and went away. If you had (good, well-formed) schema in the head then that would suggest the crawling party might be able to ascertain the intent of the page just from that, and not even have to understand the body fully in order to make decisions on the full page.

From this, you could also make a leap forward and say that (at some point, and if crawl budgets became more limited or constricted) then those crawls may be instructed to sometimes just go to the head or up to a certain point in the body.

The other benefits are more theoretical (at this time) so probably not the place to go into them here, but all of the above could change at any time.

[Former Member 14]

G gave up on the igaming niche years ago.
SEO round table and the likes, great for mainstream, clueless about igaming.

I stopped following what G said ages ago, and I'm still in business,and stronger too. I suggest others follow the same path