Question about schema.org
-
Hi guys,
I have a website that has many local based pages. In other words we're featuring local businesses in many many cities. So my question is, will it help if i add schema markup to each page while each markup will be appropriate to the city each page belongs to? Will it help with ranking those local pages?
Thanks
-
Hi Miriam, thank you for helping! Yes, this is what i wanted to know if there is a way to somehow to mark local page with numbers of vendors on it (not individual pages with only one vendor).
Thanks
-
Wow, great discussion going on here, everybody!
Marina, you would use local business Schema markup on the individual listings. So, markup for plumber A and markup for plumber B ... but not local business markup for the page itself.
...At least, I'm pretty sure that's what you're asking
-
Thank you all for helping me to figure it out!
Richard, i'm trying to assign structured data to identify the whole page itself as a list of plumbing businesses from specific area. I just want to add a location markup and potentially type of vendor (i.e. plumber, roofer..). Is that possible?
Andy, can you elaborate what you mean by "you can add schema to the listings on the page though?"
Thanks!
-
As per the confusion I too was thinking it would be individual pages for each business in a location. As for the markups I suppose it depends on the different businesses being used.
If however they are all on one page then as per Andy I am not sure you can feature all the schema at the same time without causing some issues.
-
Hi Marina,
Im afraid you cant do this. There is no page level markup for a page like this. You can add schema to the listings on the page though.
-Andy
-
Marina,
This is an excellent question. Thank you for clarifying. Just to be clear, Are you trying to assign structured data to identify each of the businesses in this listing as plumbers from that area, or simply trying to identify the page itself as a list of plumbing businesses from that area?
Sorry for any confusion. Thanks again for clearing that up. Sorry to keep asking question, just want to be absolutely sure I know your intent. Thanks!
-
Thank you for answering!
So yes, i see i haven't articulated my question clearly enough. Andy is right, i have local pages where there are several local businesses are featured on the same local page. For example, 5 plumbers in Atlanta, GA. So all of these local businesses are located in Atlanta, GA but they don't have any relation to each other.
My initial question was if i can mark such local pages (with number of local businesses from the same city on every page) with schema.org so search engines will only see that this page is about a local business (let's say plumbers) and its location (let;s say Atlanta GA).
THank you again!
-
No need to apologise Richard - We need Marina to confirm the structure
-Andy
-
If that is the case, then by all means I apologize. From what I gathered, she said she has local business in many cities. I'm assuming that each of the "local pages" she is referring to, is a page optimized for that business in a specific city, with different pages for each city.
If I am wrong I stand corrected and apologize for any confusion.
-
And this is absolutely correct for a business, but from what I understand, it is the page that all of these businesses sit on that Marina was referring to.
If I have this wrong and Marina is only looking to markup each business on a page, then this is what you would do and there is absolutely no issues with that.
-Andy
-
She said she has a website that has many local based pages. You can easily markup different pages for different locations.
-
Marina, here is an example of how you can do this for your business.
Your Business Name
Your Street Address
You City/Town,
Your State
Your Zip CodeUnited States
Your Phone Number
Cash
Credit Card
Check
Mon-Sat 9am - 5:30pm -
From what I understand Richard, Marina is wishing to Markup a page that relates to multiple different businesses that are not related. I'm not even sure what Markup you would use in this instance.
Local Markup relates to businesses, not pages that are more like a directory.
If I have misunderstood the page concept, then I could have this wrong, but I don't think I have.
-Andy
-
I completely understand what you are saying Andy. I just don't see much risk with location markup so long as the correct location is used and the markup is valid. It will certainly help Marina to add structured data to improve location association for a page already optimized for Local SEO for that city. If Marina is simply adding this markup for a business location, I can't see how a penalty would arise so long as the correct information was used.
If Marina was using structured data to associate a location to a business page that the business wasn't actually located at, then I'd be worried. I agree with what you are saying, but I think the risk is minimal in this instance so long as your markup is correct and your location data is correct.
-
Hi Marina,
The trouble is, Markup isn't meant to be used in this manner. It is for a single item or single entity. If you had a page dedicated just to one business or chain, then it's a little different. Someone might be able to suggest a way around this but I am not aware of a way to Markup a page in the manner you are looking for.
Have a read of these examples over at Google.
-Andy
-
Hi guys. Thank you so much for insights! I really appreciate so rapid responses!
Tim Holmes, can you please advise what markups i should add to better determine the locality of the pages? You also said "just make sure you implement it correctly so you don't conflict with each entry." Can you please give me more details on how to implement it correctly so i don't make conflict with each entry?
Andy Drinkwater, yes i read these guidance and i totally understand them. However, as i understand this applies to rating and reviews only. What i want to do is just to mark each local page with local markups. Please let me know if i'm missing something.
Thank you in advance!
-
It's not so much the writing of spammy markup Richard - it's the incorrect use of it. You wouldn't use Markup to help classify a page full of businesses in a specific location in this manner. This goes against the uses that are suggested as they are not specific items.
It's a little difficult to imagine the exact setup of the site and pages without seeing them, but I would be hard pushed to say this would be a recommended technique as it goes against the uses that Google suggests.
-Andy
-
As far as what Andy is saying, you should have no worries if your website is being monitored in Google Search Console. If you have Structured Data on your website, Google will notify you if there are any issues with the markup of your structured data. However, you can easily prevent the possibility of writing bad structured data markup.
Google provides a Structured Data Testing Tool, as well as an on page data highlighting tool directly in Google Search Console to test structured markup with. In Google Search Console, there is a tab called Search Appearance in the side navigation. Under this tab, you can find Structured Data. If you have structured data on your website, you can also use this tab to validate that Google is aware of your structured data, and that there are no errors.
While Andy is correct that Google is now penalizing websites for spammy structured data markup, you can easily avoid these penalties with tools that they provide you, as well as receive notifications directly from Google if you website is in violation of these rules. Just make sure your website is added to your Google Search Console account, and that you are receiving notifications. Hope this helps!
-
Hi Marina,
Approach this with caution. Google is penalising sites that abuse / over optimise their schema markups. What you are suggesting sounds like you could cause your site harm:
Review and rating markup should be used to provide review and/or rating information about a specific item, not about a category or a list of items. For example, "hotels in Madrid", "summer dresses", or "cake recipes" are not specific items. See also our structured data policies for multiple entities on the same page. Read more here
Tread very carefully and I would advise testing with a small control group first of all if you want to do this. Remember that Google is targeting spammy use of markup, so just don't fall into this category. You are wanting to markup other locations that are not directly related to yourself.
My gut feeling is don't do this if you think what you have planned falls into this e.g "business in LA" or "restaurants in London".
-Andy
-
As per the previous two posts, I would imagine that it will help Google determine the locality of the pages and that of the featured businesses a little easier, just make sure you implement it correctly so you don't conflict with each entry.
More details on local schema markup can be found below.
https://schema.org/LocalBusiness
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/business-location-pages/schema.org-examples
Brett provided the great testing tool above too
Cheers
Tim
-
Hello Marina,
I would certainly recommend it, you will also future proof the sites structure as schema.org seems to be the only thing the 3 top engines can agree on to mark it up Google has a free tool https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/ with some tutorials. Hope this helps
-
Hi Marina,
Good question, it most certainly will have an impact on how Google sees the page as you have spend some time making sure the pages are marked up in the right way. I would never put it as a first priority but would make sure that your pages have some some elements of the markup.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Wordpress Blog, Schema and Authorship Settings
Hi Everyone, What is the best practice for authorship in 2018 and going forward? I am moving my entire blog over to a new wordpress theme so it's easier to read and navigate in an attempt to make it look better on the mobile and give better UX / CRO and implicit user feedback signals to google. On the old blog I would say who the author is in the URL, H1 and in the content. This includes an image of the author with an image alt with their name, qualifications and blurb. I've now set up each author as a 'user' for the new blog and their image and name comes up because I've marked those blogs as authored by that particular user in Wordpress. What should I do as far as the SEO elements are concerned? I have read Eric Enge's blog about authorship being dead here and also that authorship should be marked up in schema correctly - which I've done. Also I've read around how it provides indirect signals even though it's no longer a direct ranking factor. Should I tell wordpress to ignore the authorship SEO element by unticking the boxes relating to publishing authorship or let wordpress just do it's thing? Should I keep the images and alt tags and H1 in there or take them out and let the wordpress system take over the authorship SEO elements? It's going to look funny to have author (in wordpress theme) and then author details again just below? So what is the best practice for authorship in 2018 and going forward? Am I making too big a deal of it and can just let wordpress sort it out. Something it seems to do very well? Thanks in advance, Ed.
Local Website Optimization | | Smileworks_Liverpool0 -
Content Strategy – Blog Channel Questions
We are currently blogging at a high volume to hit keywords for our 1,500 locations across the country. We are trying to make sure we rank well near each location and we have been using our blog to create content for that reason. With recent changes on Google, I am seeing that it is more about content topics than hitting all variations of your keywords and including state and city specific terms. We are now asking ourselves if the blog channel portion of our content strategy is incorrect. Below are some of the main questions we have and any input that is backed by experience would be helpful. 1. Can it hurt us to blog at a high volume (4 blogs per day) in an effort to include all of our keywords and attach them to state and city specific keywords (ie. "keyword one" with "keyword one city" and "keyword one different city")? 2. Is it more valuable to blog only a couple of times per month with deeper content, or more times per month with thinner connect but more keyword involvement? 3. Our customers are forced to use our type of product by the government. We are one of the vendors that provide this service. Because of this our customers may not care at all about anything we would blog about. Do we blog for them, or do we blog for the keyword and try and reach partners and others who would read the content and hope that it also ranks us high when our potential customers search? 4. Is there an advantage/disadvantage or does it matter if we have multiple blog authors? Big questions for sure, but if you have insight on any one of them, please provide and maybe we can answer them all with a group effort. Thanks to all of you who are taking the time to read this and contribute.
Local Website Optimization | | Smart_Start0 -
Advice on applying Service Area Schema
So I have client that delivers goods to residential addresses and commercial businesses. They have 60+ distribution centers but want to target surrounding counties, cities and territories. Our development team was considering using virtual location pages (thousands) for these service areas. I have lobbied against this out of concern that Google would label these "doorway" pages. These pages would not have full addresses. I want to develop a strategy to gain coverage in these surrounding delivery areas. I was told that applying https://schema.org/serviceArea might help. However will this truly bring in the necessary visibility? Would having only a few key select virtual locations suffice (along with Service Area schema)? Any advice on applying https://schema.org/serviceArea attributes would be much appreciated.
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB
Thanks0 -
Schema markup for a local directory listing and Web Site name
Howdy there! Two schema related questions here Schema markup for local directory We have a page that lists multiple location information on a single page as a directory type listing. Each listing has a link to another page that contains more in depth information about that location. We have seen markups using Schema Local Business markup for each location listed on the directory page. Examples: http://www.yellowpages.com/metairie-la/gold-buyers http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CS=L&MCBP=true&C=plumber%2C+dallas+tx Both of these validate using the Google testing tool, but what is strange is that the yellowpages.com example puts the URL to the profile page for a given location as the "name" in the schema for the local business, superpages.com uses the actual name of the location. Other sites such as Yelp etc have no markup for a location at all on a directory type page. We want to stay with schema and leaning towards the superpages option. Any opinions on the best route to go with this? Schema markup for logo and social profiles vs website name. If you read the article for schema markup for your logo and social profiles, it recommends/shows using the @type of Organization in the schema markup https://developers.google.com/structured-data/customize/social-profiles If you then click down the left column on that page to "Show your name in search results" it recommends/shows using the @type of WebSite in the schema markup. https://developers.google.com/structured-data/site-name We want to have the markup for the logo, social profiles and website name. Do we just need to repeat the schema for the @website name in addition to what we have for @organization (two sets of markup?). Our concern is that in both we are referencing the same home page and in one case on the page we are saying we are an organization and in another a website. Does this matter? Will Google be ok with the logo and social profile markup if we use the @website designation? Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | HeaHea0 -
A question about similar services a multiple locations
Moz Friends, I hope you can help with this question. My company has 25 locations, and growing. Our rankings are strong in the Serps and Local Maps. With each location, we create a new page (with a unique URL) for that specific location (ex: Thriveworks.com/knoxville-counseling). We then write about 15 pages of unique content for that location, each page about one of the services we provide like: Depression Counseling, Couples Therapy, Anger Management, Eating Disorder Treatment, Life Coaching, Child Therapy, and the list goes on and on.... Hence, for each location, we create a pile of URLS like: Thriveworks.com/knoxville-counseling/couples-therapy, ..../knoxville-counseling/depression-therapy, .../knoxville-counseling/anger-management... We do this to rank for medium-long-tail searches like "Knoxville Marriage Therapy." As we grow, this results in us writing lots and lots of original content for each location. Original, but somewhat redundant. We would much rather write one AMAZING article on depression counseling, than 25 'okay' ones for each office we open. So, my question (if you're still reading) is our current approach the right one? Should we continue the grind and for each location create a unique page for each service offered out of that office? Or is there a better way, where we can create One anger management page that would suffice for each of our local offices? Has anyone addressed this topic in an article? I Haven't found one... I look forward to your feedback, and thanks in advance!!
Local Website Optimization | | Thriveworks-Counseling0 -
Company Knowledge Box Questions
I've been keeping track of changes in my company's Knowledge Box, and it's been responding in completely unpredictable ways. We are currently in the middle of a site redesign -- the current site has not received any SEO attention in a while, apart from two major edits: 1. Adding the social media schema (which Google has not picked up -- we did this close to two months ago). 2. Citation cleanup through Moz Local and BrightLocal What I've noticed about the Knowledge Box is that it would show up for the query "Now Media Group" if and only if the location was set for San Diego, CA, which is where we're based. Now, it will only show up for the query "Now Media Group San Diego." My first question: If the location setting is already set for San Diego, why would Google need the additional qualifier to show the Knowledge Box? Any theories? My second question: Is our local SEO efforts hurting our online presence? We don't provide services locally, except to a handful of clients. We have clients throughout the United States and Canada. It'd be nice if our Knowledge Box showed up regardless of where someone is searching our brand name from. The reason I point at local SEO specifically is because I've noticed that an ex-client of ours has a knowledge box no matter where you search from, and she has no local SEO whatsoever -- the Box shows the address: Douglass, KS. Is our local SEO sending Google mixed signals and affecting when/where the Knowledge Box shows up? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | nowmedia10 -
Does Schema Replace Conventional NAP in local SEO?
Hello Everyone, My question is in regards to Schema and whether the it replaces the need for the conventional structured data NAP configuration. Because you have the ability to specifically call out variables (such as Name, URL, Address, Phone number ect.) is it still necessary to keep the NAP form-factor that has historically been required for local SEO? Logically it makes sense that schema would allow someone to reverse this order and still achieve the same result, however I have yet to find any conclusive evidence of this being the case. Thanks, and I look forward to what the community has to say on this matter.
Local Website Optimization | | toddmumford0 -
Local Business Schema Markup on every page?
Hello, I have two questions..if someone could shed some light on the topic, I would be so very grateful! 1. I am still making my way through how schema is employed, and as I can tell, it is much more specific (and therefore relevant) in its details than using the data highlighter tool. Is this true? 2. Most of my clients' sites have a footer with the local business info included on every page of their site (address and phone). This said, I have been using the structured data markup helper to add local business schema to home page, and then including the footer markup in the footer file so that every page benefits from the local business markup. Is this incorrect to use it for every page? Also, I noticed that by just using the footer markup for the rest of the pages in the site, I am missing data that was included when I manually went through the index page (i.e. image, url, name of business). Could someone tell me if it is advisable and worth it to manually markup every page for the local business schema or if that should just be used for certain pages such as location, contact us, and/or index? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | lfrazer0