Post on 14-Apr-2017
A website’s structured data success story August 19th, 2015
Jarno van Driel SEO Specialist
@JarnoVanDriel#SmartDataWeek
1. Introduction
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Jarno van Driel • In-‐house SEO for Sanoma Digital NL
• Degree in Mechanical Engineering
• Working on the web since 1998
• Semantics enthusiast since 2001
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As a moderator for the Google+ community Semantic Search Marketing I sometimes help out with structured data issues
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Which is how I ran into CosmeticSurg.net autumn 2013
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Then, late January 2014, a request came in We need help writing microdata with schema.org for our procedure pages. Are you available for this sort of thing?
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A pretty straightforward request
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We called
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But wouldn’t you know it…
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Spring 2012 we noticed the site’s traffic and leads were on a steadily declining path
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I compared their data
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Houston, we have a problem!
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We think we got hit by Panda
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No, not this one
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This one! New and important site quality algorithms
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Which Google deployed worldwide less than 2 months after introducing them
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Algorithms based on ideas, research and a mindset that Google engineer Amit Singhal tried to clarify
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We responded by doing a range of things
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Summer/Autumn 2012 • Rewrote meta titles and descriptions site wide • Changed the URL structure of photo galleries • 301 redirects, page deletions • Merged all photos of the same patient into a single gallery page
• Beefed up photo gallery pages surrounding content • Started investigating link profile • Attended to the usual*
Winter 2012/2013 • Site redesign and launch: Refined site hierarchy and templates, revamping the home page, the procedure info pages, and the photo gallery pages
• Started posting questions on Google’s Product forum • Methodical review of Amit Singhal’s Content Quality 23 point list
• Modified the site’s URL parameters • Continued scrutinizing site content (editing and deleting pages)
• Edited +25% of old blog posts, added images and sub-‐headings.
• Attended to the usual*
Spring 2013 • Site audit • Revised all site video pages and YouTube channel—integrated YT videos into site content.
• Local citation audit (and re-‐submission to top tier portals) • Made MapMaker corrections • Attended to the usual*
Summer 2013 • Got in touch with Google engineer John Mueller after taking another big hit in May. We learned the algorithms were having a ‘hard time recognizing the overall quality of the website’.
• Focus group review of Amit Singhal’s Content Quality 23 point list
• Continued improving the depth of current content • Scaled up the publication of new content and Social Media participation
• Updated KML files • Attended to the usual*
Autumn 2013 • Added G+ authorship markup • Started adding structured data • Went to SMX New York to attend semantic track sessions
• Attended to the usual*
* The “usual” generally consisted of:
• Finding and fixing technical glitches • Keeping a close eye on Google Webmaster Tools (now Google Search Console) for crawl errors and html suggestions among other things
• Adding new content • Optimising Google places, other business listings and profiles • Thwarting content scrappers • Fixing broken links • Being more and more active in social media • etc.
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01] 02/24/2011 -‐ Panda/Farmer 02] 04/11/2011 -‐ Panda 2.0 03] 05/09/2011 -‐ Panda 2.1 04] 06/21/2011 -‐ Panda 2.2 05] a -‐ 07/23/2011 -‐ Panda 2.3 05] b -‐ 08/12/2011 -‐ Panda 2.4 06] a -‐ 09/28/2011 -‐ Panda 2.5 06] b -‐ 10/05/2011 -‐ Panda "Flux" 07] 10/14/2011 -‐ Panda 2.5.2 08] 11/18/2011 -‐ Panda 3.1 09] 01/18/2012 -‐ Panda 3.2 10] 02/27/2012 -‐ Panda 3.3 11] 03/23/2012 -‐ Panda 3.4 12] a -‐ 04/19/2012 -‐ Panda 3.5 12] b -‐ 04/27/2012 -‐ Panda 3.6
01] 02/24/2011 -‐ Panda/Farmer 02] 04/11/2011 -‐ Panda 2.0 03] 05/09/2011 -‐ Panda 2.1 04] 06/21/2011 -‐ Panda 2.2 05] a -‐ 07/23/2011 -‐ Panda 2.3 05] b -‐ 08/12/2011 -‐ Panda 2.4 06] a -‐ 09/28/2011 -‐ Panda 2.5 06] b -‐ 10/05/2011 -‐ Panda "Flux" 07] 10/14/2011 -‐ Panda 2.5.2 08] 11/18/2011 -‐ Panda 3.1 09] 01/18/2012 -‐ Panda 3.2 10] 02/27/2012 -‐ Panda 3.3 11] 03/23/2012 -‐ Panda 3.4 12] a -‐ 04/19/2012 -‐ Panda 3.5 12] b -‐ 04/27/2012 -‐ Panda 3.6 13] a -‐ 06/08/2012 -‐ Panda 3.7 13] b -‐ 06/25/2012 -‐ Panda 3.8 14] 07/24/2012 -‐ Panda 3.9 15] 08/20/2012 -‐ Panda 3.9.1 16] a -‐ 09/18/2012 -‐ Panda 3.9.2 16] b -‐ 09/27/2012 -‐ Panda #20 17] a -‐ 11/05/2012 -‐ Panda #21 17] b -‐ 11/21/2012 -‐ Panda #22 18] 12/21/2012 -‐ Panda #23 19] 01/22/2013 -‐ Panda #24 20] 03/14/2013 -‐ Panda #25 21] 05/09/2013 -‐ Phantom (Quality algorithm) 22] 06/11/2013 -‐ Panda Dance 23] 07/18/2013 -‐ Panda Recovery
I searched for clues
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Nothing worked, so we want to see if structured data can turn things around
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Turning Panda around with structured data! Have you lost your whiskers?
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Then again, interesting concept -‐ and the site’s got plenty of content to work with
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You know, what if…
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We fix the structured data fundamentals first
You stop what you’ve been doing for one year
We wait and see what we can learn from that
We act once we feel we’ve located the underlying issue
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2. Moving ahead
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A. Investigating the evidence
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Only 1 business showed up in the SERPs where there should have been 2
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PracticeSurgery center
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A hot topic
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Oh! the joy of more
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Surgeon
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What can we do about this?
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We are going to develop our own knowledge graph
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You two! Go build that graph
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Surgery center schema.org/MedicalClinic
Surgeon schema.org/Person
Practice schema.org/Physician
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schema.org/sameAs
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But just when we were about to release, Google updated Panda (May 16th 2014 )
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We adjusted plans and delayed release until the end of June
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And calmly waited to see if something would happen
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Bill Slawski SemTechBiz, August 19th 2014
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http://bit.ly/SemanticSearchSemTechBiz2014
2 different types of businesses, sharing the same NAP information, showing up in the SERPs
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His Royal Highness – Triples – King of the Graph
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Want to know more about knowledge graphs and triples? Go to: http://bit.ly/KeyTakeawaysSemTechBiz2013
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B. Social Media optimization
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The site’s blog contained some markup but there were still some big gaps to fill
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Markup was added for Twitter’s Summary Card
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and Summary Card with Large Image
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og:article markup was added for Facebook
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But getting Google+ right needed some sorting out
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Schema.org types changed and graphs had to be rebuilt
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Which led to the desired result for Google+ shares
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But overall
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Social Media requires more than just adding some markup
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3. The hunt for Panda
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After the upgrade, Sessions refused to move
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Time for some further investigation
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Loads of GWT reports showed overlapping queries and pages
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Looking at the site this made sense – plenty of topical overlap
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Could it be Panda is struggling to tell Things apart?
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The moment when Amit Singhal finally started to make sense
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What can we do about this?
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We’ll run a test to see if it helps when we specify what the articles are about
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An example of an article about 2 topics (text values)
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But alas, Sessions still wouldn’t move
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We think we need more triples
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Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant entities on the same or similar topics with slightly different property variations?
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You two! Go build Next Gen graphs
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MedicalProcedure + Service Thing
Article
aboutabout
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schema.org/sameAs
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An example of an article about 2 topics (entities)
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Will this work?
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Sessions finally took off
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And reached heights never reached before
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Even after a new Panda update
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4. Satisfying the skeptic
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Structured data tracking in GA!
You know what you can do with that?
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Google Tag Manager + Google Analytics http://bit.ly/ImplementAndTrackStructuredData
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Having this type of data in GA is just the beginning
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The real fun starts when you export GA’s enriched data
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All pages Landing Page – All Sessions
Imagine you'd like to know what the effects of adding ‘about’ triples were
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t-‐1 = before Panda 4.0 t+1= after Panda 4.0
schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – All Sessions
October 6th 2014 – start adding ‘about’ triples
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schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – All Sessions
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schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – Pageviews / Session
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schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – Avg Session Duration
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schema:MedicalProcedure schema:Service (Object) Landing Page – All Sessions
Over at the ‘Object’ side of the triples
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schema:MedicalProcedure schema:Service (Object) Landing Page – All Sessions
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Hail, Triples – King of the Graph
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Feel like doing your own analysis? You can! The datasets used can be found at: http://bit.ly/structureddatasuccess
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Many thanks go out to (in alphabetical order) • Aaron Bradley – SEO Analyst – Electronic Arts • Daniel Bos – Director Data & Analytics – Takeaway.com
• Leeza Rodriguez – Chief Marketing and Operations – CosmeticSurg • Leigh Aucoin – Web Development Team Lead – Search Influence • Lisa Melvin – SEO Consultant – Windy Hills, Inc. • Mike Arnesen – Founder & CEO – UpBuild
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Questions?