Fact Checks

Overview

If you have a web page that reviews a claim made by others, you can include a ClaimReview structured data element on your web page. This element enables Google Search results to show a summarized version of your fact check when your page appears in search results for that claim.

Example

Imagine a page that evaluates the claim that the earth is flat. Here is what a search for "the world is flat" might look like in Google Search results if the page provides a ClaimReview element (note that the actual visual design may change):

See what the structured data looks like on the page that hosts this fact check:

<script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "ClaimReview", "datePublished": "2016-06-22", "url": "http://example.com/news/science/worldisflat.html", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "CreativeWork", "author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Square World Society", "sameAs": "https://example.flatworlders.com/we-know-that-the-world-is-flat" }, "datePublished": "2016-06-20" }, "claimReviewed": "The world is flat", "author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Example.com science watch" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": "1", "bestRating": "5", "worstRating": "1", "alternateName" : "False" } }</script>

Guidelines

In addition to general policies that apply to all structured data markup, these additional guidelines apply to fact checks:

• Fact checks associated with news articles can be shown in either News results or the combined search results view; all other fact checks can appear only in combined search results view.
• Fact checks of a news claim must meet the News Publisher criteria for fact checks.
• Fact checks are not guaranteed to be shown: inclusion of fact check elements in Google Search results is determined programmatically. Fact check elements are scored based on a programmatic ranking of the site. Sites are evaluated in a process similar to page ranking: if the site ranking is high enough, the fact check element can be displayed in search results along with your page. The entire process is conducted programmatically; human intervention only occurs when user feedback is filed as violating the Google News Publisher criteria for fact checks, general guidelines for structured data, or when the publisher (whether or not a news site) does not meet standards for accountability and transparency, readability or site misrepresentation as articulated in our Google News General Guidelines.
• A single page can host multiple ClaimReview elements, each for a separate claim (see below).
• If different reviewers on the page check the same fact, you can include a separate ClaimReview element for each reviewer's analysis (see below).
• The page hosting the ClaimReview element must have at least a brief summary of the fact check and the evaluation, if not the full text.
• You should host a specific ClaimReview on only one page on your site. Do not repeat the same fact check on multiple pages, unless they are variations of the same page (for example, you can post the same ClaimReview on the mobile and desktop versions of a page).

Posting multiple fact checks on a page

Multiple ClaimReview elements on a single page do not need to be about the same claim, but they should all be relevant to the main topic of the page.

Most sites implement multiple fact checks per page in one of two ways:

• Create a summary page with multiple summarized fact checks, each with its own ClaimReview element. Post the full-text version of each fact check on its own page. Each ClaimReview element on the summary page points to the full-page version rather than to the summary page.
• OR
• Create a single page with multiple full-length reviews, each with an HTML anchor. Each ClaimReview element points to that summary_page.html#anchor.

On mobile devices only, if a page hosts multiple ClaimReview elements, all items will be displayed in a results carousel like this:

If your organization is interested in implementing, or seeing issues with, ClaimReview, submit your contact information here and our team may reach out to you.
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Type definitions

The following structured data types are required to implement fact checks.

ClaimReview

ClaimReview is defined by Schema.org, where you can find the full list of all supported properties. The following table shows the minimum required properties for a ClaimReview to be eligible to appear in Google Search results.

Property	Description
@type	Text, Required Must be "ClaimReview".
datePublished	DateTime, Required The date when the fact check was published
url	URL, Required Link to the page hosting the full article of the fact check. If the page has multiple ClaimReview elements, be sure that the fact check has an HTML anchor, and this property points to that anchor. Examples: longreview.html or summarypage.html#fact1
itemReviewed	CreativeWork, Required An object describing the claim being made. Described below.
claimReviewed	Text, Required A short summary of the claim being evaluated. Try to keep this less than 75 characters to minimize wrapping when displayed on a mobile device.
author	Organization, Required The publisher of the fact check article, not the publisher of the claim. Must be an organization, not a person. Must have at least one of the following properties: name [Text, Organization or Person] Name of the author of the fact check. url [URL, Organization only] The URL of the author of the fact check. This can be a homepage, contact page, or other appropriate page.
reviewRating	Rating, Required The assessment of the claim. This object supports both a numeric and a textual assessment. The textual value is currently the only value shown in search results. The numeric value is not shown, but is used to evaluate consistency of fact checks across different sources; therefore having a numeric value may increase the chances of your fact check being shown. Try to design a consistent number to text rating system for all your fact checks. For example: -1 = "Hard to categorize" 1 = "False" 2 = "Mostly false" 3 = "Half true" 4 = "Mostly true" 5 = "True" If you cannot assign a numeric value to your fact check, specify -1 for all of [bestRating, worstRating, and ratingValue] and assign a meaningful value for alternateName (for example, "True" or "Mostly true"). See details of the Rating object below

CreativeWork

CreativeWork is used by the ClaimReview object. It is defined by Schema.org, where you can find the full list of all supported properties. The following table shows the minimum required properties for a fact check to be eligible to appear in Google Search results.

Property	Description
@type	Text, Required Must be "CreativeWork".
author	Organization or Person, Required The author of the claim, not the author of the fact check. Must have the following property defined: name [Text, Organization or Person] The author of the claim. The following field is recommended: sameAs [URL, Organization or Person] If an organization, the URL of the page hosting the claim (preferred); otherwise, the homepage of the organization making the claim. For a person, a definitive page providing information about the person making the claim, such as the person's Wikipedia page.
datePublished	DateTime, Optional The date when the claim was made or entered public discourse (for example, when it became popular in social networks).

Rating

Rating is used by the ClaimReview object. It is defined by Schema.org, where you can find the full list of all supported properties. The following table shows the minimum required properties for a fact check to be eligible to appear in Google Search results.

Property	Description
@type	Text, Required Must be "Rating."
ratingValue	Number , Required (Use -1 if you cannot assign a numeric value) A numeric rating of this claim, in the range worstRating — bestRating inclusive. Not shown, but used to evaluate the strength of this fact check across multiple pages. Integer values recommended but not required. The closer this number is to bestRating the more true it is; the closer this value is to worstRating, the more false it is. Must be able to be evaluated as a number. Example: 4
bestRating	Number, Required (Use -1 if you cannot assign a numeric value) For numeric ratings, the best value possible in the scale from worst to best. Must be greater than worstRating. Must be able to be evaluated as a number. Example: 4
worstRating	Number, min value 1, Required (Use -1 if you cannot assign a numeric value) For numeric ratings, the worst value possible in a scale from worst to best. Must be less than bestRating. Must be able to be evaluated as a number. Example: 1
alternateName	Text, Recommended The truthfulness rating assigned to ClaimReview.reviewRating, as a human-readible short word or phrase. This value is displayed in the fact check in search results. Examples: "True" or "Mostly true". If using a longer sentence, be sure that the beginning of the sentence expresses the meaning, in case the sentence is truncated to fit the display. For example: "Mostly true in the specifics, although the overall claim is somewhat misleading"
name	Text, Optional; use alternateName instead Same as alternateName, and used when alternateName is not provided, but we recommend that you specify alternateName instead of name.