Cookie preferences

Skip to content
SearchCub
  • On-page SEO
  • Explainer

Which Structured Data Still Matters for a Blog?

Editorial responsibility: SearchCub

Created: Edited:

Structured data still changes how a blog appears in Google only where it feeds a feature Google supports today, such as recipe, video and review results, desktop breadcrumbs and your site name; FAQ and HowTo markup no longer show anything. This guide sorts what still works from what Google has switched off, then shows how to check what your theme or SEO plugin already adds. It reflects Google's documentation as read on 8 October 2026.

What structured data does

Structured data is code in a page that describes its content to search engines. Google calls it "a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content" (Google: introduction to structured data). Most of it uses the schema.org vocabulary, and Google recommends the JSON-LD format, which sits in a script tag instead of in your visible text.

When Google uses that markup for a richer display, such as star ratings or a recipe's cooking time, the result is called a rich result. Markup makes a page eligible for one; it does not switch one on. Google's general guidelines say: "Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly" (Google: general structured data guidelines). Its systems choose the display for each search, and sometimes they pick a plain text result.

Two rules apply to every blog. Mark up only what readers can see on the page, and follow the guidelines for the feature you want. Markup that breaks them can bring a manual action, which removes the page's rich result eligibility; Google says such an action has no effect on the page's ranking in Google web search.

What Google has switched off

Google has removed several rich results since 2023. These were changes to how results look, and several of the announcements say outright that rankings are unaffected; the June 2025 post put it as "This update won't affect how pages are ranked" (Google: simplifying the search results page).

  • FAQ (FAQPage markup). What happened: Limited to "well-known, authoritative government and health websites" in August 2023, then shown to no site from 7 May 2026. Google's notice: 2023 change, Search Console Help.

  • How-to (HowTo markup). What happened: Dropped from phones in August 2023 and from desktop on 13 September 2023. Google's notice: 2023 change.

  • Sitelinks search box. What happened: Removed from results starting 21 November 2024. Google's notice: Farewell post.

  • Breadcrumbs on phones. What happened: Removed from mobile results in a rollout that began on 23 January 2025; desktop still shows them. Google's notice: Breadcrumb change.

  • Claim Review, Learning Video, Course Info, Estimated Salary, Special Announcement, Vehicle Listing. What happened: Phased out of results during 2025. Google's notice: 2025 removals.

If your plugin still adds FAQPage or HowTo markup, you can leave it in place. Google's 2023 announcement said unused structured data causes no problems for Search, though it has no visible effect in Google Search either. A visible list of questions and answers can still help your readers; only the special display is gone.

If your FAQ impressions in Search Console fell in May 2026, Google has already explained why. Search Console Help lists the change as a data anomaly: "As of May 7, 2026, FAQ rich results are no longer appearing in Google Search."

What still changes a blog's results

Google's Search Gallery is the current list of supported features, last updated on 15 June 2026. FAQ and How-to are no longer on it. These entries fit most blogs:

  • Article or BlogPosting. Fits: Every post. What it can change, in Google's documentation: Can help Google display a better title, images and dates for the post in search results; it has no required properties (Article).

  • WebSite, on the home page. Fits: Every blog. What it can change, in Google's documentation: The site name shown with your results; "WebSite structured data is most important, if you want to specify a preference" (site names).

  • BreadcrumbList. Fits: Blogs organized into categories. What it can change, in Google's documentation: The breadcrumb trail shown after your domain in desktop results (Breadcrumb).

  • Recipe, plus ItemList for a carousel. Fits: Recipe blogs. What it can change, in Google's documentation: Recipe rich results in Search and Google Images; "Use Recipe structured data for content about preparing a particular dish" (Recipe).

  • VideoObject. Fits: Blogs that host their own videos. What it can change, in Google's documentation: The "description, thumbnail URL, upload date, and duration" shown in video results, plus key moments within a video (Video).

  • Review snippet (Review, AggregateRating). Fits: Reviews of books, products, software apps, recipes and other supported items. What it can change, in Google's documentation: Star ratings and review details; the reviews must be visible on the page (Review snippet).

  • Organization, on the home page. Fits: Blogs run as a business or brand. What it can change, in Google's documentation: "which logo is shown in Search results and your knowledge panel" (Organization).

  • Image metadata. Fits: Photography and illustration blogs. What it can change, in Google's documentation: The creator, usage and credit details Google Images can show (Search Gallery).

Recipe and video blogs have the most to gain, because Google can use their markup in more than one place, including Google Images. A recipe carousel needs ItemList markup and a summary page that lists the recipes in the collection. Video markup on the page where the video plays can also help Google discover the video, according to Google's video guide.

Review markup has the strictest rules. Google's review guidelines say "Don't aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites", and a business that controls the reviews about itself can't earn stars for them with Organization or LocalBusiness markup.

Before you add video markup to years of old posts, look at what the results page shows for the searches you target. In SearchCub's Keyword overview, the SERP overview for a keyword lists the features on its results page, such as Video. Keyword research for food bloggers reads those signals for one recipe search.

Check what your theme or plugin already adds

You may already have more markup than you think. Google notes that on a platform such as WordPress, Wix or Shopify you might be able to specify structured data through a plugin, and some SEO plugins add it on their own. Yoast SEO's help pages, for example, say that by default it marks up pages with WebPage schema and posts with Article schema (Yoast: schema settings).

To see what a post actually carries:

  1. Open Google's Rich Results Test and paste the address of a published post. It reads the page as Google does, with a smartphone user agent by default, so a page blocked by robots.txt or behind a login can't be tested (Search Console Help: Rich Results Test).

  2. Read the summary line. It reports how many valid items it found, whether some are invalid, or that no items were detected. Then open each detected type, such as Article or Breadcrumb, to see its errors and warnings.

  3. Fix an error where the markup comes from. If your plugin or theme writes it, change that setting once instead of editing posts one by one, then test the post again.

  4. To list every schema.org type on the page, including ones Google doesn't use for rich results such as WebPage, paste the address into the Schema Markup Validator. Google moved its old testing tool there to "check syntax and compliance of markup with schema.org standards", so it says nothing about Google eligibility (Google: testing tool update).

  5. Once the markup is live, watch the rich result reports in Google Search Console. Google recommends them after release, since templating or serving problems might break the markup after deployment.

Measure before you add more

Google suggests a before-and-after test instead of assuming a gain. Pick a few posts that are read steadily and don't swing with the seasons, with several months of Search Console data. Add the markup, confirm with the URL Inspection tool that Google found it, then compare each post's clicks and impressions in the Performance report, filtered by URL, over the following months (Google: measuring the effect of structured data). How to check your website's SEO performance shows how to keep dated records like these for the whole site.

Markup is also only one input to the two lines most searchers read. Google builds title links from your title element, headings and other page text, with WebSite structured data last on its list, and snippets are "primarily created from the page content itself" (Google: title links, Google: snippets). SEO titles and meta descriptions covers those two lines, and what is a SERP names the other parts of a results page.

Your next step

Run your three most-read posts and your home page through the Rich Results Test. Write down the types it finds and any errors. The Rich Results Test can't check site names, so look for WebSite markup on the home page with the Schema Markup Validator. Then add only the markup that matches what your blog publishes: Recipe for recipes, VideoObject for your own videos and Review for real reviews.