Google also announced that the Structured Data Testing tool is going to be deprecated. It is still available for a short time but there is no specific date yet on when Google will officially remove it. Moving forward, Google urges webmasters to use the Rich data markups. Here’s what you need to know about the Rich Results Test tool. How does the Rich Results Test Work? Rich results (formerly known as rich card and rich snippets) are special types of search results that are different from the regular blue links in Google. It uses structured data to identify which type of rich results a page is eligible for.
In the Rich Results Test tool, there are
two options to validate; either via the specific URL of the page you want to check or a code snippet. There’s also an option to select a user-agent the tool will use but right now, only Google Smartphone bot is available. Once the tool is done analyzing the page, it will show the types of rich results a page or code is valid for. It will also identify any errors that may hinder your webpage from appearing in the rich results. You could also click on “Preview Results” and it will show how your page will look as a Rich Result. Here are the types of rich results that are available in the Google search results right now: Article Book Breadcrumb Carousel Course Critic Review Dataset Employer Aggregate Rating Event Fact Check FAQ How-to Image License Metadata Job Posting Job Training Local Business Logo Movie Estimated Salary Podcast Product Q&A Recipe Review Snippet Sitelink Searchbox Software App Speakable Subscription and Paywalled Content Video If you want to learn more about how each type of rich result looks and the proper structured data markup to be eligible for them, you could check out Google’s Search Gallery.
Reactions from SEOs In the official Google
Webmasters Twitter account announcement, many SEOs were disappointed about the tool and the planned depreciation of the structured data testing tool. As pointed out by Barry Adams and Digitaleer, the Structured Data Testing tool can validate any type of structured data markup, not only those that are valid for rich results. In my opinion, the structured data testing tool was a great tool on its own because I use markups that are not included yet in the rich results list. The Structured Data Testing tool was also great for debugging. SEOs have noticed that compared to it, the Rich Results Test tool would usually vague error messages. It seems like the release did not go smoothly as Google planned but I do believe that they will add more rich results types and make it available in the tool.
And with the deprecation of the Structured
Data Testing Tool, I do hope that they move the feature of being able to validate all types of structured data markup in the Rich Results Test. Key TakeawayIt’s a common occurrence for SEOs and webmasters that track their rankings to experience sudden website ranking drops. Since Google’s algorithm is continuously updating, SERP volatility is common and affects hundreds or even thousands of websites in different industries. The problem with undiagnosed ranking drops is the decrease in your website’s search visibility. This could lead to less traffic, and for business websites, this leads to fewer conversions and profit. Identifying the cause of the rankings drop is tantamount to fixing it and, hopefully, recovering your rankings.
So, how do you identify the cause of your
website’s rankings drop? Knowing bolivia phone number library Where to Look The first step to identifying the cause of your rankings drop is to identify the variables that changed. This is because a drop in rankings won’t happen for no reason. There will always be a reason for changes in rankings (positive and negative) and this usually happens due to a change in a factor/s that affects your page’s rankings. This may sound easy but it’s not. There are numerous factors that affect a page’s rankings, some we can identify and some are still a mystery. That is why determining the exact factor why your rankings dropped is easier said than done.
But here’s what you should do: Limit the
scope of your search. Since you’ll just tire yourself out investigating factors that no one knows about, limit your scope to factors that YOU have control over. So, once you have limited your scope of search, this is when you’ll investigate deeper. The way we do it in SEO Hacker is to identify changes in 3 major places that contain a variety of factors that can affect our rankings. Then, we’ll dive deeper and deeper until we find the changes that COULD contribute to the website rankings drop and we either change them back or improve them further than they initially were. So, where exactly are these 3 major places? INSIDE Your Website Since we need to limit the scope of our search to things we have control over, it makes sense that we start with the page/website immediately.
You have to first identify if the website is
experiencing ranking drops in multiple what about Inbound Marketing for Startups? keywords or if you only experience a drop for a specific keyword that a single page is ranking for. Take a look at this example: Page ranking drop screenshot The rankings drop happened to a single page that has been consistently ranking positively for numerous months. We automatically limited the scope of our search to the page itself. After determining that technical factors such as title tag, h1, etc. have been changed, we took it a step further and changed it for the better (not revert it back to the original). After a few days waiting for it to be recrawled, It ranked higher than it has ranked for the past few months.
Since we limited our scope, easily found out the
changes made and fixed them uk data immediately, we didn’t waste our energy and time checking other factors that would have turned out to be unrelated to the drop. So, we highly suggest that you start INSIDE your website. But what happens if nothing changed inside the page or website? Then, you check out other factors outside your website. OUTSIDE Your Website The scope for this is limited to your search competitors overtaking you on the results page. This usually become more relevant and useful for the users, or an overall upgrade of their website’s technical factors.