Google Articles Updates Structured Data Guidelines

Google has updated its structured article data guidelines to reflect that it has dropped the AMP requirement and changed its image guidelines for Top Stories eligibility.

Three changes to the guidelines make it more accessible for more publishers to be eligible for a story section that can dominate the top of search results.

Structured data is no longer necessary for mainstream news

Top News is how Google displays fresh news content in search results.

Searches on popular news topics will generate a top news section that appears at the top of search results at sizes that can dominate the search screen on mobile and desktop devices.

Top news can also be displayed lower in the middle of the page.

As a result, appearing in the top news is critical for breaking news websites.

Something interesting is that Google added text to the first paragraph of the structured data article guidelines that structured data does not have to appear in headlines.

This is a new paragraph:

“Adding structured article data to news, blog and sports articles pages can help Google understand more about the website and display better title text, images and date information for the article in search results in Google Search and other features (such as Google News and Google Assistant). While there’s no tagging requirement to be eligible for Google News features like Top News, you can add an article to tell Google more explicitly what your content is about (for example, it’s a news article, who the author is or what the title of the article is).”

Whether it’s always been the case that structured data wasn’t required for eligibility, or whether this is something new, it’s notable because it shows that Google’s documented requirements are less restrictive and more inclusive.

This means that news sources that do not add structured article data may still be eligible to appear in top news.

This also applies to other enhanced lists. So it’s only natural that Google’s Top Stories documentation should also follow the trend of not needing more structured data to qualify.

However, it is still a best practice to include structured data, including Article Schema.org structured data, because it allows publishers to make web pages easier for Google to understand.

Google deletes references to AMP

AMP, which stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, is a framework for developing HTML pages that load extremely fast on mobile devices.

Using AMP was once a must to get in the headlines.

This is no longer the case, and Google has removed AMP-related information from the Article Structured Data Guidelines to reflect this change.

Google didn’t just change the guidelines to include AMP and non-AMP information. Google has completely removed all references to AMP from the Structured Data Guidelines.

Publishers using AMP are no longer referenced by the Structured Article Data Guidelines.

Google published advance notice about this change in 2020 in a blog post:

“AMP will no longer be required for stories featured in Top Stories on mobile; it will be open to any side.”

Change image guidelines in top news stories

The second change, which could be considered the most important, makes it easier to achieve inclusion in the main stories.

The change is in the image size. Google reduced the required image size,

Google’s Structured Image Data Guidelines previously required high-resolution photos with a minimum of 800,000 pixels when multiplied by width and height.

The following is stated in the guidelines before and after the change.

Before:

“For best results, provide multiple high-resolution images (at least 800,000 pixels when multiplied by width and height) with the following aspect ratios: 16×9, 4×3, and 1×1.”

after:

“For best results, provide multiple high-resolution images (at least 50K pixels when multiplied by width and height) with the following aspect ratios: 16×9, 4×3, and 1×1.”

“For best results, provide multiple high-resolution images (at least 50K pixels when multiplied by width and height) with the following aspect ratios: 16×9, 4×3, and 1×1.”

Guidelines for the most popular stories

These changes may seem trivial at first glance. But they are important.

The complete removal of any guide for publishers using AMP is a bit curious. It’s almost as if Google is moving away from AMP.

Google’s update to its top news image guidelines is a welcome change, encouraging the use of smaller image sizes, which is good for users and publishers.

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Quotes

Archive of Google’s previous Structured Data Guidelines articles

Current Google Guidelines for Structured Article Data

Featured Image Shutterstock/The Faces