Google has revised the structured data documentation concerning the beta version of Structured Data Carousels, which displays rich results for eligible topics. The updated documentation offers precise details on specific requirements and explicitly states that the rich result features are restricted to a single geographic area.
Enhancing Structured Data Carousels (Beta)
The Structured Data Carousels (beta) empowers web publishers specializing in travel, local information, and shopping to incorporate structured data into their pages. This structured data renders them eligible for a novel carousel rich result, prominently showcasing their content in search results through a horizontally scrollable list. Leveraging the ItemList structured data, this beta feature caters to webpages featuring content aligned with LocalBusiness, Product, and Event Schema.org properties. Each tile within the carousel presents pertinent details such as pricing, ratings, dates, and images, enriching user interaction.
Reinforcing Focus on Summary Pages
In the revised documentation, there’s a stronger emphasis on utilizing the beta carousel structured data on a summary page. This summary page serves as a hub, linking to more detailed pages without requiring those linked pages to contain the specific structured data.
Previously, the instructions stated:
“Add markup to a single page (also known as a single, all-in-one-page list) that contains all list information, including the full text of each item. For example, a list of the top hotels in a location is on one page.”
The updated documentation presents the following explanation:
“Select a single summary page that provides information about each entity in the list. For instance, a category page featuring the “Top hotels in Paris” includes links directing users to specific detail pages on your website for further insights into each hotel.”
Additionally, an illustrative example has been included for clarity:
“For instance, if you have an article titled “Things to do in Switzerland” listing local events and businesses. Add the necessary properties to this summary page. There’s no need to incorporate markup into the detail pages for eligibility in this beta feature.”
Furthermore, a new paragraph has been introduced:
“Your website must comprise both a summary page and multiple detail pages. This feature is not intended to accommodate other setups, such as an all-in-one page where the “details” are anchor points within the same page.
The markup should be implemented on a summary or category page, resembling a list-like format containing information about at least three entities and linking to other pages on your website for additional entity details. While markup on the detail pages is unnecessary, it’s imperative to include the URLs of these detail pages in your summary page’s markup.”
The revised paragraph emphasizes the structured data’s association with a standalone summary page. Here’s the updated version with the new wording italicized:
“The canonical URL for the item detail page (for example, the standalone page for a single hotel or vacation listing referenced in the summary page). All URLs in the list must be very unique but live on the same domain (the same domain, sub, or super domain as the summary page).”
Enhanced Understanding of Geographic Eligibility
In Google’s changelog documenting the updates, clarifications regarding the use of structured data on summary pages are mentioned. However, the changelog overlooks the inclusion of more detailed information regarding the availability of the new rich results features.
Here’s the excerpt from the changelog:
“Clarified that the beta carousel feature is for sites that have a summary page that links out to other detail pages on their website. The markup must be on the summary page, and you don’t need to add markup to the detail pages to be eligible for this feature.”
However, this changelog needs to be completed, as it fails to acknowledge the additional paragraph that elucidates the geographic limitations of this rich results feature.
The prior version needed more details about which countries are eligible for the beta rich results. Although this information was initially announced with the new feature, it wasn’t included in the documentation of the feature’s changes.
The new documentation addresses this omission with additional content:
Feature availability
This feature is in beta, and you may observe changes in requirements or guidelines as we refine it. Suppose your business is based in the EEA or caters to users within the EEA, and you’re interested in exploring these new experiences. In that case, you can get started by completing the relevant form (for flight queries, utilize the interest form).
Presently, this feature is exclusively accessible in European Economic Area (EEA) countries on both desktop and mobile devices. It’s applicable to travel, local, and shopping queries. For shopping inquiries, it’s initially being tested in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK.
It’s puzzling why Google omitted crucial details about feature availability in the original Carousels (beta) documentation and should have acknowledged its inclusion in the changelog documentation.
The addition of such important information to the newly updated documentation should have been highlighted in the changelog.
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