Schema and Rich Results Resources | Sitebulb

Schema and Rich Results Resources

Updated February 2, 2021

Schema is now an integral element of SEO. To make chasing Google’s rich results that little bit easier, we’ve gathered up some of the most useful resources on the subject.

Whether you’re just getting started with Schema, or can’t figure out how to trigger that illusive rich snippet, we’ve got a bit of something for everyone.

Contents:

Google’s Schema Resources

I can’t really start without first covering Google’s own resources and tools. For SEO’s wanting to get rich results in Google’s SERPs and looking for ‘definitive’ guidance, Google’s own resources would seem the obvious source. However, as is often the case, there’s currently a lot of discrepancies between the various tools and guidelines that Google provides.

This is something that they acknowledge. And as such, John Mueller recommends following the documentation (we can assume this to mean the developer guidelines) rather than relying on their associated tools which can produce different results.

Introduction to how structured data works

Good starting point for a walkthrough of how structured data works behind-the-scenes. It’s probably a bit basic for most SEOs, but often useful to share with clients or colleagues that haven’t encountered it before.

Key Google Schema Resources:

Other Search Engines

Although Google is typically the focus for most English language SEO, other search engines shouldn't be dismissed. Although some of the alternative search engines are taking similar approaches to Schema, they do differ. As such, we've included guidelines from Bing and Yandex:

Bing:

Yandex:

Schema.org Official Documentation

The Schema.org vocabulary currently consists of over 800 types and is growing all the time, yet Google only supports ~20. Although a large proportion of these types will never be relevant for SEO, it does give an idea of the potential for growth in this area. It’s worth having a dig around to get an understanding of the full extent of Schema.org.

Structured Data Guidelines Change Alerts

Google has a nasty habit of quietly making little changes that suddenly mean your structured data doesn't meet their criteria anymore. After launching new Structured Data features in the Sitebulb tool, we've needed to keep track of every little change on both Schema and Google's guidelines.

We built a system to monitor them, then thought: "why not share it with everyone else?" - and thus our new Structured Data Change Alerts system was born!

Content & Guides

Schema Markup Generators

Schema Plugins and Tools

People to Follow

by Geoff Kennedy