Level 80
Been using structured data for a year or two now. I’m not too involved in SEO, but I figure every little helps and it can’t hurt to have more descriptive mark-up on mine and my clients’ sites!
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Aug 26, 2016
8
Level 47
SEO and structured data
Been a few posts about seo. I thought I'd share this tid bit:
Meta tags with site description and keywords is pretty much ignored by search engine spiders along with hidden content because devs abused them and the search results were unpredictable for the user.
Now I work a lot in the Google eco system including apps, analytics and search console to ensure and monitor client websites etc. One of the newer tech that replaced meta tags is structured data snippets that help let Google know what in on the page and what to index in results etc.
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data?hl=en&rd=1
This is one of many ways to help your site be indexed properly. Also use (unless your in China which doesn't allow google) to set up a Google Search Console account. This tool not only shows how your site ranks, but tidbits of information how to help increase indexing and keywords associated with your site.
Level 47
@martinbean lol, it's a science that's for sure.
Level 80
@jekinney A science where the creator is constantly tweaking the laws.
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Level 53
Cool stuff! Where should I add the Google console HTML verification file? in the root of the project or in public? Maybe somewhere else?
Level 47
If you can't verify by Domain name provider (recommended), then I suggest verifying by HTML tag.
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="Your Code provided by Google Search" />
It only needs to be there a few minutes to verify you have access to the site. With Laravel it's a pain to do the HTML file as the site will be down as you would replace the index.php with the file google provides.
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Level 17
Meta tags with site description and keywords is pretty much ignored by search engine spiders along with hidden content because devs abused them and the search results were unpredictable for the user.
Meta keywords are mostly pointless now, but a good meta description will often be shown to users by search engines.
It's not going to help your rankings, but it may help your traffic.
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Level 47
@MikeHopley 100% correct. They should still be used and arguably unique on each page. Thank you for adding that.
Level 1
I added structured data to some project pages using schema.org types and saw better rich snippets in search results within a few weeks. JSON-LD format worked best for me.
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