Adding context to structured data issues in Search Console

Monday, March 28, 2022

To help you identify structured data issues more effectively, starting tomorrow Search Console is adding more context to its error reporting.

For example, if a website doesn't provide the name of the author in Review snippet markup, Search Console currently reports an error named Missing field "name". Starting today, that error will be named Missing field "name" (in "author"). The more detailed context in parenthesis can help you find the issues more easily in your structured data.

Structured data issues context in Search Console

This change will impact all Search Console rich result status reports, the Search Console URL inspection tool and Rich Results Test, even if you haven’t changed your structured data markup:

  • All your open issues that refer to nested properties will be automatically closed (for example, the Missing field "name" issue in the example above).
  • You'll see new open issues with more context about what's missing (for example, the issue will say Missing field "name" (in "author"). To avoid overloading Search Console users with emails, we won't send notifications on the creation of these new issues.

Please note that if you requested Search Console to validate a fix before the change, you will need to revalidate the new issues.

In summary, this is simply a change in the issue name, it will not affect how Search Console detects errors, and all the issues that are being closed will be replaced by a new issue with the additional context in the issue name.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out on the Google Search Central Community or on Twitter.