The Google team has been reworking on the product structured data documentation and has finally completed the task. They have split the single comprehensive page into three different topic-specific pages.
Google Product Structured Data
No doubt, if you run an e-commerce website, you require adding product structured data to your website. Similarly, it applies to product review websites for they help improve search appearance and the chances of listing you in the rich result listing also increase.
In short, Product structured data has the potential to significantly increase a website’s earnings and visitors when used effectively.
This new change might be a lot to take in but surely going to benefit businesses in the long run.
So, exactly what changed?
The major change made to the documentation is splitting the single document into three pages.
The original document has been renamed as Introduction to Product Structured Data which includes only 667 words now. The original file, however, had 4808 words.
Apart from these minor changes, a new section of the revamped page “Deciding Which Markup To Use” is of major importance.
Unlike before, now users have three different product structured data documents to go through:
- Introduction to Product Structured Data
- Product Snippet Structured Data
- Merchant Listing Structured Data
Detailed Rewritten Documents
A new standalone page dedicated to adding product structured data has been added, along with a revised introduction to product structured data, so that users can now apply for rich results regarding product availability, pricing, ratings, and reviews.
The new product snippet page “How To Add Product Snippet Structured Data” is over 2,500 words long, excluding a few
examples of structured data. This updated page has a lot of old content. A portion of the previous 6,000 word mega-page and this new standalone page bear similarities, suggesting that this area was separated from the older material and given its own page.
2. Merchant Listing Structured Data
In order to surface products in the shopping-related rich results that Google refers to as Merchant Listing Experiences, a second new page is devoted to the product structured data that is unique to merchant listings and comes in at about (more or less) 1,700 words.
There is absolutely no information regarding what Merchant Listing Experiences are or how they appear in the search results on the page specifically dedicated to Merchant Listing Structured Data, except from one illustration. The new page’s second line invites readers to go to the Introduction To Product Structured Data homepage to see more examples of the rich outcomes from the Merchant Listing Experiences.
It was decided to divide a topic into its component subtopics rather than create one large, comprehensive page. This resulted in three more closely focused sites, which should improve both user experience and search engine ranking.
Or, do you also think it is a strategy to highlight the old content and grab some more attention to this topic?
Share your thoughts.
