John Mueller: Structured Data Is Unsupported By Google

John Mueller confirmed that Google receives all the context it needs about a webpage from the page itself and not from the structured data. This means SEO experts do not need to focus too much on structured data as it rarely provides the search engine with unique information. With that said, SEO expert agencies should update their SEO techniques to be in line with changes to Google’s algorithms.

Mueller also said that Google only supports the structured data in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It is not about website owners not being able to give additional context or information about their site using structured data; Google just won’t read it.

In an SEO Office Hours live stream on 4 December, Mueller covered the topic about unsupported structured data. A website owner asked a question, asking if it is beneficial for webmasters and businesses to use structured data markup – something that was not included in Google’s official documentation.

The person specifically asked if additional properties in schema give SEOs any advantages. They also asked if there is any benefit or harm in adding AMP article properties on non-AMP webpages.

In Google’s structured data documentation, the company included a “Feature Guides” section. There, they discussed an extensive number of markup types that correspond to search results’ rich features, including Q&As, FAQs, Recipes, How-To’s, and more types of structured data that SEO experts and webmasters can use.

However, there are more structured data types than the ones supported in the SERPs. This means that the question the website owner asked focuses on the effect of using unsupported structured data in Google; if using such data can help or hurt a website.

Mueller replied that in terms of search rankings, there are no advantages that one can get from using unsupported structured data. However, he encourages businesses and website owners to focus on using structured data for the search features that businesses aim to be eligible for.

He also said that there is also no harm to using unsupported structured data, but it is highly advisable for businesses to use such data if they want the elements they have to appear in the search results.

Mueller also said they do not crawl structured data for the sole purpose of getting more context from the webpage. Rather, they crawl structured data to display relevant answers in the search engine results page, allowing users to find rich results that match their queries.

Google takes information from visible webpage content to organise and display them in search results. This is an important thing to know for businesses and website owners because unsupported structured data types can be placed on a website without changing the webpage’s visual elements.

The search engine does not crawl structured data that’s not shown on a webpage, and Mueller even pointed out that the search engine rarely gets any unique data from it. What their algorithm systems do is just crawl the pages as normal, but the extra information isn’t really used.

Mueller also addressed the AMP markup, saying that it does not really tell Google something unique or different about a webpage. They are just an alternative way of giving the webpage metadata. With that said, it does not cause any problems; but it does not provide benefits either.

When it comes to taking good care of your website rankings, it’s crucial that you work with an SEO expert agency like Position1SEO to ensure that you are on the right track. Search engine optimisation is a very complex field; it needs businesses to have up-to-date knowledge and techniques, as well as advanced SEO tools to ensure that all the data they have are accurate and specific to their brand.

Call us today on 0141 404 7515 or email us at office@position1seo.co.uk and request for a free, comprehensive SEO audit!