Mild-mannered designer by day…
I don’t actually think I’m a superhero. I mean, many people have this notion that superheroes have genetic mutations and have superpowers. Neither of which I have. Unless you count being a triplet as a genetic mutation 😉
Tools I use to test a Shopify store's structured data
I’m frequently asked about why structured data doesn’t appear in Google’s Search Console or why it says there are no results, even awhile after JSON-LD for SEO has been installed.
The problem is that some of Search Console’s tools for structured data and Rich Results have bugs or are still in beta so they don’t work reliability. With some stores they work perfectly, others are misreported so badly that it’s not worth even using Search Console for that data.
The two tools I use are Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool and Google Search itself.
The Structured Data Testing Tool is a bit of a developer tool because it reports on the exact data found on a page but it’s instantaneous and correct the majority of the time. The only major bug in there is the Preview never works correctly, but I ignore that.
The best way to see the final results is to check in Google Search and see what Rich Snippets/Rich Results you’ve gotten. I recommend using a special search as described in this article to find all of the product pages in your store. It’ll also rank your products so you can see which ones Google considers your best and most linked-to products.
The other tools: Search Console, the new beta Search Console, and the new Rich Results Testing Tool are all buggy or don’t report on all of the Rich Results correctly yet. My hope is that once those get out of beta they’ll work correctly but Google has a reputation for having products in beta for a long-time (and a reputation for canceling well-loved products).
Today would be a good day to Install JSON-LD for SEO if you haven’t yet.
It can take some time before Google awards Rich Snippets to a store so if you want to be competitive for this holiday season, you should get this done soon.
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
Link discontinued products to their best substitute. Keep discontinued products published on your website and continue to benefit from traffic to these pages.