Microdata

Microdata allows search engines to give a more accurate, relevant, and overall improved user experience. By implementing microdata (or other forms of structured data markup such as JSON-LD) we can further clarify what exactly sections of our web page is comprised of. Since everyone's code is different, search engines sometimes have problems with interpreting data, and by marking a breadcrumb list as such (instead of an additional navigation bar, for example), we can give additional information to the likes of Google and co.

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Web pages that are more specialised such as sites containing recipes and how-to tutorials may wish to make use of structured data to appear on a wider variety of search results. If someone, for example, searched 'pizza'. How should a search engine interpret this? That person may wish to order pizza (in which case, rich results could display local pizza restaurants), or maybe they are interested in making it themselves (a recipe site would be more useful in this case). The search could also be interpreted as somoene who merely wanted to know about the history of pizza, or what pizza is. Rich results making use of structured data can supply a variety of information on the same search result, thus encompassing a wide variety of results about such a vague search.

Examples of Rich Results and Microdata

A screenshot showing a test of my structured data using Google's 'Rich Results Test' — After implementing my own structured data with microdata, I proceeded to test my code using Google's 'Rich Results Test'. I had a few errors at first, but adjusted it to the image above, resulting in no errors.

A screenshot of how Google interprets breadcrumb microdata — This image shows how Google interprets breadcrumb microdata on a results page, and how it can supply additional information about the structural layout of the website overall.

Five examples of rich results generated using microdata or other forms of structured data — Here are 5 examples of rich results generated using microdata relating to the search term 'pizza'. There's a 'local business' result in the top left containing opening times, user reviews, and location. An image 'carousel' is displayed in the bottom left. A 'recipe' rich result is displayed in the top right, along with a summary of ingredients and user ratings. A 'frequently asked questions' rich result is displayed in the middle right. Finally, a 'video' result is displayed in the bottom right along with a text summary of the video, and video segments.