Google’s Rich Cards Will Bring More Eye Candy To Mobile Search Results
Google wants more eye candy to spruce up its search results on mobile, so it has introduced rich cards, a new search result format building on the success of rich snippets. Rich snippets are structured data markup that site operators can add to their existing HTML. This allows search engines to better understand what information is contained on each web page.
Like rich snippets, rich cards use schema.org to display content in an even more engaging and visual format. The content, however, is now presented in carousels that are easy to browse by scrolling left and right. Rich cards are currently available for two content categories: recipes and movies. They will appear initially on mobile search results in English for google.com. More categories will become available as the technology improves.
Na'ama Zohary, of the Search Console Team, and Elliott Ng, Product Management Director, of Search Ecosystems stated, “For site owners, this is a new opportunity to stand out in Search results and attract more targeted users to your page. For example, if you have a recipe site, you can build a richer preview of your content with a prominent image for each dish. This visual format helps users find what they want right away, so you're getting users who specifically want that especially delicious cookie recipe you have.”
Google will provide a how-to guide for site owners which will allow them to find out which fields are essential to mark up in order for a rich card to appear, see a preview and tweak errors in the Structured Data Testing Tool, receive suggestions on which cards can be enhanced, and monitor the performance of the cards. Site owners can still to use their existing rich snippets and the Structured Data report will also continue to show only top-level entities for the existing rich snippets and for any new categories. Google will continue to maintain the same technical and quality guidelines for both rich snippets and rich cards.
Those who are interested in rich cards can check out Google I/O for recorded live streams. There is also a dedicated Structure data section on their Google+ and Twitter.
Like rich snippets, rich cards use schema.org to display content in an even more engaging and visual format. The content, however, is now presented in carousels that are easy to browse by scrolling left and right. Rich cards are currently available for two content categories: recipes and movies. They will appear initially on mobile search results in English for google.com. More categories will become available as the technology improves.
The Evolution of Rich Cards
Na'ama Zohary, of the Search Console Team, and Elliott Ng, Product Management Director, of Search Ecosystems stated, “For site owners, this is a new opportunity to stand out in Search results and attract more targeted users to your page. For example, if you have a recipe site, you can build a richer preview of your content with a prominent image for each dish. This visual format helps users find what they want right away, so you're getting users who specifically want that especially delicious cookie recipe you have.”
Google will provide a how-to guide for site owners which will allow them to find out which fields are essential to mark up in order for a rich card to appear, see a preview and tweak errors in the Structured Data Testing Tool, receive suggestions on which cards can be enhanced, and monitor the performance of the cards. Site owners can still to use their existing rich snippets and the Structured Data report will also continue to show only top-level entities for the existing rich snippets and for any new categories. Google will continue to maintain the same technical and quality guidelines for both rich snippets and rich cards.
Those who are interested in rich cards can check out Google I/O for recorded live streams. There is also a dedicated Structure data section on their Google+ and Twitter.
