Using Google Search Console to Monitor Schema Markup

Although Schema Performance Analytics is unparalleled in terms of powerful, granular ROI reporting on Schema Markup, we will always have a place in our hearts for Google Search Console. GSC is an invaluable resource for reviewing the health of your Rich Result eligible content and provides some useful high-level impact reporting capabilities. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Enhancement Report
• Shopping Report
• Indexing Report
• Performance Report

Enhancement Report

Enhancement reports are a sub-set of information about Rich Result eligible markup that Google has indexed for a given GSC property. Reports are separated by Rich Result Type, and can contain a list of Valid Items, and Invalid Items. You'll notice that messages about Valid Items, Errors, and Warnings align with the results of what a Rich Results Test would show for a given URL. Many reports also include a tick box to show the volume of impressions associated with a particular Rich Result. 

 

Valid Instances: Valid Items

Click through to see a full list of all Rich Result eligible instances. Like most data in GSC, the list of URLs is truncated at 1000. You can always use the URL Inspection tool to review pages that are not included in the report. This report does not guarantee that a URL will be awarded a rich result. Instead, you can consider it a confirmation that Google has indexed your markup. The Performance Report provides more insight about whether the result was actually awarded.

Invalid Instances: Why Items Are Invalid

There's only one way to have a valid result, but there are many ways your markup can be invalid. This report provides clues as to what information is missing or mal-formed, giving you an opportunity to investigate and resolve the root cause. The following screenshot shows errors for VideoObject markup. You can click through see a complete list of URLs that are affected by those errors.

Once you've investigated the cause, and addressed it, you can request re-indexing by clicking "Validate Fix". Google will test a handful of affected pages, and if those URLs pass, then the entire list of affected URLs wil be re-crawled. Resolving errors can be an iterative process. Furthermore, it may not be possible to resolve some errors (think: Products with no pricing information present on the page). We typically refer to those unresolvable errors as "Expected based on page content".

Instance Optimization: Improve Item Appearance

Not every piece of missing or malformed information causes a critical error. Google also provides warnings or feedback about missing information that might improve the completeness of your results. Again, some of this information may simply not be present. A common example of this is the warning "priceValidUntil" for Product offers.

Shopping Report

As of March 2023, Google split reporting on Product Snippets and Merchant Listings, into its own section titled "Shopping Reports". Previously, this information was included in the general Enhancement Report. These reports are laid out similarly to the Enhancement Report, providing information about Valid Items, Invalid Items, and Areas for Improvement. 

This section provides reporitng on two types of appearances or Rich Results:

1. Product Snippets 
2. Merchant Center Listings

Indexing Reports

In general, the Enhancement Report and Shopping Report will provide all the information requried for confirming that your rich result eligible markup has been indexed. However, when indexing issues arise, the Indexing Report can be invaluable for troubleshooting.

Indexing issues, broadly defined, are scenarios where markup is deploying but not being indexed by GoogleBot or other web crawlers. This support article goes into more detail about why GoogleBot might not be seeing and indexing your markup.

Use the Indexing Report > Pages section to review the range of possible reasons why GoogleBot has not been indexing URLs on your site. Consider these potential clues in the process of resolving indexing issues.

Performance Report

Performance Report > Search Results provide insights about how Google is using your Rich Result eligible markup to award enhanced appearances in the SERP. Although there are multiple filters in the Search Results Performance Report, for our purposes we are most interested in the Search Appearances filter.

Search Appearances

Frustratingly, Google does not provide reporting for every possible Rich Result. Currently only certain results are included in the Search Appearances filter including: Product Snippet, Merchant Listing, Review Snippet, and Video. Rich Results that do not receive reporting include: Vehicle, Software Application, and Article among others.

Filter by Search Appearance

When a particular search appearance filter is applied, the Performance Report only shows metrics for URLs and instances where that particular rich result was achieved. If a particular URL only sometimes receives a rich result, filtering for that search appearance will only show metrics (clicks, impressions, click-through-rate, and position) for the times that the rich result was achieved.

Compare Search Appearances

By clicking on the "Search Appearance" filter you can open up a dialog box that allows you to compare results for two search appearances. 

Review Queries, URLs, Devices when Search Appearance Filters are Applied

When you apply a Search Appearance filter, all the data in the Queries, URLs, and Devices tabs will be filtered accordingly. This may be helpful in gaining insight regarding when a rich result is more or less likely to be awarded, based on a query, search type (web, image, etc), or URL.