Big change to the Google product structured data page

Google revamped its product structured data documentation by splitting a full page into three pages that focus more on their topics, providing an example of how to rewrite an overly large page and turn it into several relevant web pages.

Structured data from Google products

Structured product data is essential for e-commerce and product review websites because it helps them qualify for rich listings on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). When deployed correctly, structured product data can make a significant contribution to the amount of traffic a website receives and to earnings.

The restructure of Google’s official documentation offers a lot to the e-commerce community, but also simplifies the structured data web page of increasingly large products.

what changed

The most notable change to the documentation is that the entire document has been split into three pages. The original document, Product Structured Data, was renamed Introduction to Product Structured Data. The word count went from 4,808 words to just 667 words, with roughly 50% of the new document containing the same content. Aside from the trivial changes, there is a new section on the revamped page called Deciding Which Which Markup To Use, which serves as a starting point for the two new pages.

Marketers, product review site editors, and SEOs now have three structured product data documents to read:

Introduction to Product Structured Data Product Snippet Structured Data Merchant File Structured Data

In addition to the above changes, there is a new blue-tinted text box that draws attention to the Product Variants Structured Data page that replaces similar text that was buried in the document and easily overlooked.

Callout Box screenshot

Extensively rewritten document

There are cases where the headings of the new documentation were rewritten to make it clear what the topic of each section is about.

The new Introduction to Structured Data page now contains a brand new section. The old section was called “Types of Results” and the revamped section is called Deciding Which Which Markkup To Use, a more descriptive heading.

This is the new content:

“Deciding which markup to use
There are two main classes of structured product data. Follow the requirements for the type that best suits your use case:

Product Snippets: For product pages where people can’t buy the product directly. This markup has more options for specifying review information such as pros and cons on a product review editorial page.

Merchant Lists: For pages where customers can buy products from you. This markup has more options for specifying detailed product information, such as clothing size, shipping details, and return policy information.

Note that there is some overlap between these two features. In general, adding the product information properties required for merchant listings means that product pages can also be eligible for product snippets. Both features have their own enhancements, so be sure to review them when deciding which markup makes sense in the context of your site (the more properties you can add, the more enhancements your markup may be eligible for page).

New Front Page – Product Snippets

In addition to the revamped introduction of structured product data, there is now a new standalone page focused on adding structured product data to be eligible for rich results on product ratings, reviews, price and availability.

The title element of the new page is How to add structured data from product snippets. Excluding some of the structured data examples, the new product snippets page is about 2,500 words.

Much of the content on this new page is not new. The similarities between a section of the old 6,000-word megapage and this new stand-alone page indicate that they split that section from the old documentation and made it its own page.

New Second Page: Structured Merchant List Data

The second new page is dedicated to structured product data specific to merchant listings, critical to displaying products in the rich shopping-related results that Google calls Merchant Listing Experiences.

Aside from a single illustration, the merchant listing structured data page has no information about what merchant listing experiences are and how they appear in search results. The second paragraph on the new page encourages the reader to visit the Introduction to Structured Product Data webpage to learn more about what rich Merchant Listing Experiences results look like.

It could be argued that the merchant’s structured data page has context for the merchant listing’s experience information. But someone at Google decided that this page should be 100% focused on one thing (structured data).

The new web page is about (more or less) 1,700 words long.

Editorial decisions based on user needs

Instead of having one giant, comprehensive page on one topic, the decision was made to split it into its constituent subtopics, resulting in three pages that are now more focused and will presumably not only be better for users, but they will also be ranked better.