Google Wants To Drop Structured Data

Just when you’ve started to get your head round Structured Data, Google wants to do without it.

(That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it, you should).

Eventually, Google’s dream is to have flexible enough algorithms to be able to properly deconstruct and reconstruct the data trapped in all our web pages and apps. Using AI.

All good fun, but a long way away yet.

#SEO #SEONews #StructuredData #JSON #RichSnippets

Key Issues Summary:

• Google, as part of a long-held dream, wants to stop using structured data.
• It can’t, at the moment, but it would like to.
• In the future, Google would like its algorithms (AI, of course) to remove the need for structured data, schema and the like.

Key Actions To Take:

1. This doesn’t mean you can ditch structured data right now.
2. Google is stating a longer-term aim, like the idea of having websites which don’t need HTML.
3. What you should be doing is using structured data right now.
4. If you are not using structured data, you are missing out.
5. (Use JSON-LD – Google much prefers it)
6. Note that in the future, based on where Google is at now, you will still need to structure data in some way for it to be intelligible.
7. Click here to contact me to discuss how using structured data can improve your web presence.

Insights & Discussion:

Structured data does my head in. Mainly because its current incarnation is structured in a very literal sense, which means it makes sense to computers and data munchers, but very little to users.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take every opportunity to understand how it can and should be used on your website.  You should, you really should. It won’t necessarily help your rankings, or drive featured snippets, but it may give you more exposure in search by taking up more valuable real estate. The other thing is that all the other bots which read structured data can also suddenly read and interpret your content – that in itself is a big win for controlling what is excerpted from your content.

Over the longer term, Google really wants to take the web as it is and have the algorithms to interpret every bit of content, without the need for special code to help it. That’s a noble aim, much like the designer’s desire to separate layout from code, by adding CSS instead of HTML. But…. we’re really a long way from this happening. You can see Google’s first baby steps in this area  in Featured Snippets which are not driven by structured data, but instead are as a result of Google’s text parsing abilities.

(Speaking of AI, don;t believe the hype. What we have now are very complex algorithms based on rules. Even where they are self-learning, they are still based on rules. Once we move to origination of code, we’ll have AI. Until then it’s fancy code).

More Information:

• H/T SE Roundtable
• SEO Mid-2017: Technical SEO
• No Featured Snippets In Google Search Console
• Google Testing Featured Snippets

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We recently released the super-exciting The State of SEO in mid-2017. Read it now.

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• So, Google wants to drop structured data does it?
• Does Google not appreciate how long it takes to get your head around schema?
• When tables disappear from the web is when  structured data will disappear – and gain huge popularity overnight.
• Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
• Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
• Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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