Google Once Again Says Structured Data Does Not Impact Ranking

On Jan 18, 2020

Google, once again, had to say structured data does not impact ranking in web search. But this time Google had to say it because their structured data warnings in Google Search Console were confusing to understand and came off like bad structured data can result in a ranking drop.

Again, this is nothing new, Google has said numerous times structured data is not a ranking factor and said even if you get penalized for structured data misuse, it won’t result in a ranking drop but rather the removal of rich results in search.

So good structured data won’t give you ranking boost and spammy structured data won’t give you a ranking decline. We already know that.

I like to think of structured data as a highlighter for the search results. It makes parts of your content on your page stand out in the search results snippet via rich results.

But here it is again from Google:

Yesterday, a concern was raised that calorie information was required for recipes to be included in or to rank well for Google Search. This is not the case. Moreover, structured data like this has no impact on ranking in web search. This thread has more we hope eases concerns…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 16, 2020

Here is more on this:

With recipes, providing calorie information through structured data may then show those calories as part of the recipe’s web page listing, as can be seen below. You can also see how recipes may appear with no calorie info or any structured data at all…. pic.twitter.com/1etwt5ip4l
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 16, 2020

Clearly written by Danny Sullivan…

He then explained why this is coming up – if you follow Danny on Twitter you would have seen him going back and forth with some publishers on this:

With recipes, providing calorie information through structured data may then show those calories as part of the recipe’s web page listing, as can be seen below. You can also see how recipes may appear with no calorie info or any structured data at all…. pic.twitter.com/1etwt5ip4l
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 16, 2020

Our goal with these types of messages is to help content producers understand if there are opportunities they’re missing. We’ll be reviewing the wording of these messages to better achieve that goal and not inadvertently cause concerns.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 16, 2020

Here is where that thread started:

Apologies for any concern this message may have caused. To be clear, it does *not* mean that your recipes or content will not show in search. As it says, it’s a *suggestion* of something you might wish to try or can ignore. It has no impact on your ranking in Google Search….
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 15, 2020

Happy to. We’ll work on improving our messaging. It’s not meant to cause concern like this, so we’ll use this feedback to do better.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 16, 2020

Hope this helps.

Forum discussion at Twitter.