{"id":4144,"date":"2021-05-11T13:30:55","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rankwatch.com\/blog\/?p=4144"},"modified":"2023-07-21T11:37:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T06:07:39","slug":"is-schema-markup-a-ranking-factor-for-seo-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rankwatch.com\/blog\/is-schema-markup-a-ranking-factor-for-seo-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Schema Markup a Ranking Factor for SEO or Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you consider the <\/span>most straightforward<\/span> answer to the question that the title of this article asks, \u201cIs schema markup a ranking factor for SEO or not?\u201d The simple answer is NO. At least not right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several Google experts, including Google\u2019s John Mueller, have previously confirmed that <\/span>structured data markup<\/span><\/a> (of which schema markup is just one example) isn\u2019t used in Google Rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"John<\/a><\/p>\n

The primary aim of adding structured data is to help crawlers better understand the purpose of your content so that they can index and rank them for relevant search queries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Purpose<\/a><\/p>\n

Schema.org<\/span><\/a> is the community that handles website schema markup data.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like every coin has a flip side, it cannot be a mere coincidence that schema.org was formed just a year before <\/span>Google\u2019s Knowledge Graph<\/span><\/a> (A massive database of entities and relationships between them), which uses schema markup as its primary source of data.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Google\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s do a post-mortem to find a sort of correct answer to the question, \u201cIs Schema a ranking factor?\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Is Schema Markup?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Schema markup is a microdata that enhances the description of a web page to the search engines to help them better understand the relevancy and purpose of the content.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"What<\/a><\/p>\n

A to-the-point snippet schema markup also encourages Google to consider the content for ranking in search results as <\/span>featured snippets<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Is Structured Data Markup Important?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Structured data markup <\/span>plays an essential role<\/span><\/a> in improving SEO and search engine visibility in the following ways,<\/span><\/p>\n

Helps Google Algorithms To Better Understand And Index Your Web Pages<\/b><\/h3>\n

Google finds it easier to understand structured markup data <\/span>than<\/span> semi-structured or unstructured data you would ordinarily use.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence of this is Google\u2019s continued support <\/span>for increasing data formats to <\/span>accommodate greater adoption of widely used <\/span>RDF<\/span><\/a> (resource description Frameworks) syntaxes.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, in 2009, Google announced support for RDFa and Microformats, while more recently, in 2015, Google announced support for <\/span>JSON-LD<\/span><\/a>. Furthermore, Google encourages web users to use these data formats.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, currently, according to Google, \u201cdata in the schema.org vocabulary can be embedded in an HTML page using <\/span>three<\/span> alternative formats; RDFa, Microformats, and JSON-LD.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"JSON-LD\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Embedding<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Google, the structured markup data has to comply with <\/span>Webmaster Quality Guidelines<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Structured Data Policies<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Google was using structured markup data way before introducing schema.org in the form of structured XML data.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even now, if you submit a malformed or poorly coded XML sitemap, it will get rejected, or it will not be crawled correctly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, from the above examples, providing structured markup data in line with Webmaster Quality Guidelines and Structured Data Policies to Google will benefit your search engine visibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Imposes A Structure On Your Website Architecture<\/b><\/h3>\n

If you interlink data in your website better, you will experience a benefit towards your search engine ranking.<\/span><\/p>\n

To illustrate the point further, disorganized classification of data or unstructured data practices often result in several different URLs for the same product on the same website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By now, most SEOs know that duplicate data on a website is a strict NO-NO when it comes to search engine ranking.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, if you put your website together using structured data in RDF format by running <\/span>SPARQL<\/span><\/a> queries to retrieve and manipulate data stored in RDF format, it will ensure better visibility in search results.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Structured<\/a><\/p>\n

Using structured data yields better results than conventional <\/span>OWL ontology <\/span><\/a>(web-layered ontology) by making the website structure clear to both the search engine and the user.<\/span><\/p>\n

In essence, by using structured data, you will end up with an internally consistent website that is logical and therefore favored by the search engine, which means that there will be a positive impact on search engine ranking for the website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Automatically Links Through Machines<\/b><\/h3>\n

Since the inception of search engines, the traditional way that search engine users discover or request information is through a direct search engine query.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These days, however, different types of data <\/span>valuable<\/span> to the search engine user can be presented.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, data from, Tweets, Facebook news feeds, and other social media platforms are increasingly being added as relevant and useful results in search engine result pages.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Additionally, Google <\/span>increasingly produces<\/span> results based on a user\u2019s machine or profile observed behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, let\u2019s say that you love to search for American Football teams, players, and scores through your browser. Additionally, you have subscribed to a blog, several Twitter feeds, and Facebook groups about the NFL (National Football League).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you <\/span>do<\/span> a Google search about \u2018cowboys,\u2019 your result is likely to yield more results about the Dallas Cowboys than about the animal herders or the 1972 film with the same title.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Search<\/a><\/p>\n

Therefore, the task for <\/span>SEO<\/span><\/a>s<\/span> will be to structure more of their content and data<\/span> to make it <\/span>available for search engines for a more richly diverse search engine results page.<\/span><\/p>\n

SEOs <\/span>must also monitor <\/span>the effects of various <\/span>Google penalties<\/span><\/a> that can derail their train anytime. Hence, <\/span>SEO strategies<\/span><\/a> need to factor in all of this as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, rather than Google sending a search engine user to a webpage where the user will be encouraged to go through<\/span> some<\/span> conversion funnel or pathway, Google now provides answers on the Search Engine Results Page.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is simply the case because Google\u2019s knowledge graph makes search engines able to make sense of data and find the relationships between the data and content on websites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ranking Schema.Org And Structured Markup Data<\/b><\/h3>\n

When Google receives structured data as represented by your website, it does two key things to provide relevance and usefulness of your website to a search user\u2019s query.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It vets the data to make sure that it is authoritative data. <\/span>It does this mainly through citations, user \u201cvotes,\u201d and other ways of determining <\/span>whether the content is spam.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. It then ranks the data. At the end of the day, Google focuses on one main objective: making it as easy and convenient as possible for the search engine user to find useful and relevant answers <\/span>to their queries<\/span>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Though Google highly appreciates well-structured data or schema markup SEO, if the Google algorithm assesses that an unstructured or poorly written HTML web page is essential and valuable to many users, it will still rank higher.<\/span><\/p>\n