Google Search Console rich results report updated

Google has made two changes to the rich results report in Google Search Console. One of the changes was related to the job posting report and the other change was related to the FAQ and Q&A rich results report.

Google documented both of these changes on this help page but we will explain them below.

Job posting report. Google explained that starting on March 11, 2021 and going forward, Google has changed its requirements for the Education, Experience, and ExperienceInPlaceOfEducation properties of job posting structured markup. Because of these changes you may notice an “increase in warnings for Job Posting instances,” Google said.

If you see these new errors or notices in the rich results report, make sure to review those warnings and make sure your job posting structured data follows the new requirements in the documentation.

FAQ and Q&A report. Google explained that starting on March 2, 2021, Google will now start to validate and check the validity of FAQ and Q&A structured data that is below the root entity level. Beforehand, Google only checked the validity of FAQ and Q&A structured data at the root level.

Now since Google is checking more of the page for validity purposes, you may see an increase in the valid, warning, and invalid FAQ and Q&A items in the rich results report. This is “to reflect an accurate count of root and nested entities that we found on your site,” Google said.

If you see new issues, follow the instructions in the report and you should be good to go.

Why we care. Google is potentially showing you new errors or issues with your FAQ and Q&A structured data, as well as your job posting structured data. Now all sites use this structured data on their pages but if you or you have clients that use these structured data elements, you will want to spot check your Search Console rich results report to see if all is still working as intended.

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About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.