Google has just launched a new version of the structured data testing tool for rich results. The company will be calling the old rich cards, rich snippets or enriched results “Rich results” from now on and will group them all together. The team of 411 Locals is excited about the new tool, and here’s what you need to know about it.
This is clearly Google’s intention to simplify the terminology of the different ways to highlight your content in search. All the rich snippets, card, and enriched results will now be called “Rich results.” The tool’s purpose is diagnose your page’s structured data easier.
Basically, the tool shows if a certain page’s content from your website is eligible to be shown as rich results. Webmasters can now test all data sources such as Microdata, JSON-LD, or PDFa. Google has said that it currently tests for Recipes, Movies, Jobs, and Courses but they plan to expand. The 411 Locals team will follow the tool’s development so you can expect more articles about this.
The process is really easy: just open the tool, enter a certain URL, and review the output. If any issues are detected, the tool will highlight the invalid code in the page source. You can easily share the results if you are working with others on this page, just by clicking the share-icon. There is also a preview icon so you can compare and see all the different rich results the page is actually eligible for. When you are happy with the results given, use the Submit To Google to fetch and index this page for search.
How is this helpful to SEOs
We have talked about SEO reports before and this is not something you should definitely include in the report, but if your client has a common sense of how structured data works, showing that his page is eligible for rich results is most-certainly a plus. Like we said, the tool is currently testing for Recipes, Movies, Jobs, and Courses only but a future development is expected. If you can connect your client’s industry to the following criteria you will definitely achieve positive results.
You can see Google’s screenshot of the tool. It works on desktop and mobile.
We will never give up trying out new tools. Stay tuned for more information about the new Rich results tool and its development.