How to tell when a Shopify SEO app is full of "it"

By Ilana Davis

Want to know an easy way to tell if an SEO app understands SEO and structured data?

See if they claim that structured data helps rankings.

It doesn’t.

It never has.

John Mueller, Google’s own webmaster trends analyst has said so repeatability online and in video chats.

2016 statement about structured data and ranking

2019 statement about structured data and ranking

Yet SEO apps still claim structured data and Rich Results help your ranking.

If the claim was a one-off support email, I could understand someone getting confused. Structured data is complex and there are very few people who’ve actually researched and understand how it works in Google.

But if they’re claiming ranking improvements from structured data as a benefit of their app… you might want to question everything else they claim.

There could be snake oil in that bottle app.

That’s why I’ve always said JSON-LD for SEO can help win traffic without having to rank better. Rich Results can have a measurable increase on your traffic, without having to fight for better rankings.

If you’re relying on a different structured data app, you might want to double check what they’re claiming. You might be in for a bad surprise.

JSON-LD for SEO

Get more organic search traffic from Google without having to fight for better rankings by utilizing search enhancements called Rich Results.

Linking Llama

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