• November 27: Added profile page structured data documentation, discussion forum structured data documentation, and expanded recommendations for Q&A page structured data documentation.

Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data

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Discussion forum markup is designed for any forum-style site where people collectively share first-hand perspectives. When forum sites add this markup, Google Search can better identify online discussions across the web and make use of this markup in features such as Discussions and Forums and Perspectives.

How to use DiscussionForumPosting within a forum

In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DiscussionForumPosting",
  "headline": "Very Popular Thread",
  ...
  "comment": [{
    "@type": "Comment",
    "text": "This should not be this popular",
    ...
    "comment": [{
      "@type": "Comment",
      "text": "Yes it should",
      ...
    }]
  }]
}

If it’s more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL:

{
  // JSON-LD on non-threaded forum at https://example.com/post/very-popular-thread/14
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DiscussionForumPosting",
  "headline": "Very Popular Thread", // Only the headline/topic is explicitly present
  "url": "https://example.com/post/very-popular-thread",
  ...
  "comment": [{
    "@type": "Comment",
    "text": "First Post on this Page",
    ...
  },{
    "@type": "Comment",
    "text": "Second Post on this Page",
    ...
  }]
}

If the URL is primarily about a single post, use mainEntity (or mainEntityOfPage) to identify the primary DiscussionForumPosting:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebPage",
  "url": "https://example.com/post/very-popular-thread",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@type": "DiscussionForumPosting"
    ...
  }
}

For web pages that have a list of posts (for example, on a profile, topic, or category page), it’s common that they don’t have all the information present on the same page and require the user to click to get the extra information (like replies). It’s up to you whether you choose to include only the information that is present on the page (and include the URL to the discussion-specific posting).

Don’t mark one post on the page as a main entity if it’s not a discussion page for the post. To show that pages are a related set of posts, it might be useful to attach them all to a Collection or ItemList .

How to add structured data 

Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. If you’re new to structured data, you can learn more about how structured data works.

Here’s an overview of how to build, test, and release structured data. For a step-by-step guide on how to add structured data to a web page, check out the structured data codelab.

1. Add the required properties. Based on the format you’re using, learn where to insert structured data on the page.
   
2. Follow the guidelines.
3. Validate your code using the Rich Results Test and fix any critical errors. Consider also fixing any non-critical issues that may be flagged in the tool, as they can help improve the quality of your structured data (however, this isn’t necessary to be eligible for rich results).
4. Deploy a few pages that include your structured data and use the URL Inspection tool to test how Google sees the page. Be sure that your page is accessible to Google and not blocked by a robots.txt file, the noindex tag, or login requirements. If the page looks okay, you can ask Google to recrawl your URLs.
   
5. To keep Google informed of future changes, we recommend that you submit a sitemap. You can automate this with the Search Console Sitemap API.

Examples

The following markup example shows a non-threaded, linear forum page:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>I went to the concert!</title>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
    {
      "@context": "https://schema.org",
      "@type": "DiscussionForumPosting",
      "mainEntityOfPage": "https://example.com/post/very-popular-thread",
      "headline": "I went to the concert!",
      "text": "Look at how cool this concert was!",
      "video": {
        "@type": "VideoObject",
        "contentUrl": "https://example.com/media/super-cool-concert.mp4",
        "name": "Video of concert",
        "uploadDate": "2023-03-01T06:34:34+02:00",
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://example.com/media/super-cool-concert-snap.jpg"
      },
      "url": "https://example.com/post/very-popular-thread",
      "author": {
        "@type": "Person",
        "name": "Katie Pope",
        "url": "https://example.com/user/katie-pope",
        "agentInteractionStatistic": {
          "@type": "InteractionCounter",
          "interactionType": "https://schema.org/WriteAction",
          "userInteractionCount": 8
        }
      },
      "datePublished": "2023-03-01T08:34:34+02:00",
      "interactionStatistic": {
        "@type": "InteractionCounter",
        "interactionType": "https://schema.org/LikeAction",
        "userInteractionCount": 27
      },
      "comment": [{
        "@type": "Comment",
        "text": "Who's the person you're with?",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Saul Douglas",
          "url": "https://example.com/user/saul-douglas",
          "agentInteractionStatistic": {
            "@type": "InteractionCounter",
            "interactionType": "https://schema.org/WriteAction",
            "userInteractionCount": 167
          }
        },
        "datePublished": "2023-03-01T09:46:02+02:00"
      },{
        "@type": "Comment",
        "text": "That's my mom, isn't she cool?",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Katie Pope",
          "url": "https://example.com/user/katie-pope",
          "agentInteractionStatistic": {
            "@type": "InteractionCounter",
            "interactionType": "https://schema.org/WriteAction",
            "userInteractionCount": 8
          }
        },
        "datePublished": "2023-03-01T09:50:25+02:00",
        "interactionStatistic": {
          "@type": "InteractionCounter",
          "interactionType": "https://schema.org/LikeAction",
          "userInteractionCount": 7
        }
      }]
    }
  </script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Guidelines

For your discussion forum structured data to be eligible for usage in Google Search, you must follow these guidelines:

• General structured data guidelines
• Search Essentials
• Content Guidelines
• Technical Guidelines

Content guidelines

• Only use DiscussionForumPosting markup to describe a user-generated post on a website forum. Don’t use this markup for content that’s primarily authored by the publishers of the website or their agents.
• While we encourage valid markup of other types (Article, SocialMediaPosting, VideoObject) that can use very similar markup with comments, author information, interaction statistics, those should not use DiscussionForumPosting markup. Here are some examples:Valid use cases:
  • A community forum page where users can talk about a certain game
  • A generic forum platform hosting a wide variety of subforum content

  Invalid use cases:

  • An article or blog written directly by an agent for the website (even with comments)
  • User reviews about a product
• Note that for most of Google’s use cases, a Q&A page is considered a special case of a discussion forum page. If the structure of the forum website is primarily questions with answers, we recommend that you use Q&A markup instead. If the structure is more general and isn’t usually question and answer content, DiscussionForumPosting would be a better choice.
• Make sure each DiscussionForumPosting includes the entire text of the post and make sure each Comment includes the entire text of the response if it’s found on that page.

Technical guidelines

• Unlike our general structured data preference, we recommend providing the DiscussionForumPosting markup in Microdata (or RDFa) if possible. This prevents you from needing to duplicate large text blocks inside markup. However, this is just a recommendation, and JSON-LD is still fully supported.

Structured data type definitions

This section describes the structured data types related to DiscussionForumPosting.

You must include the required properties for your content to be eligible for usage in Google Search. You can also include the recommended properties to add more information about your discussion forum pages, which could provide a better user experience.

DiscussionForumPosting

The DiscussionForumPosting type defines an original posting that is the topic of discussion. While this type is generally composed of text, it’s possible to have a forum posting that only consists of media content.

  ...
  "sharedContent": { "@type": "WebPage", url: "https://example.com/external-url" }
  ...

Comment

The Comment type defines a comment on a original CreativeWork. In this case, this is a DiscussionForumPosting. It shares many of the same properties with our guidelines for DiscussionForumPosting.

  ...
  "sharedContent": { "@type": "WebPage", url: "https://example.com/external-url" }
  ...

InteractionCounter

The InteractionCounter allows a count to be associated with a certain type of interaction. This can be used on both content (DiscussionForumPosting and Comment) properties as well as author properties.

Monitor rich results with Search Console

Search Console is a tool that helps you monitor how your pages perform in Google Search. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google Search results, but it can help you understand and improve how Google sees your site. We recommend checking Search Console in the following cases:

1. After deploying structured data for the first time
2. After releasing new templates or updating your code
3. Analyzing traffic periodically

After deploying structured data for the first time 

After Google has indexed your pages, look for issues using the relevant Rich result status report. Ideally, there will be an increase of valid items, and no increase in invalid items. If you find issues in your structured data:

1. Fix the invalid items.
2. Inspect a live URL to check if the issue persists.
3. Request validation using the status report.

After releasing new templates or updating your code 

When you make significant changes to your website, monitor for increases in structured data invalid items.

• If you see an increase in invalid items, perhaps you rolled out a new template that doesn’t work, or your site interacts with the existing template in a new and bad way.
• If you see a decrease in valid items (not matched by an increase in invalid items), perhaps you are no longer embedding structured data in your pages. Use the URL Inspection tool to learn what is causing the issue.

Analyzing traffic periodically 

Analyze your Google Search traffic using the Performance Report. The data will show you how often your page appears as a rich result in Search, how often users click on it and what is the average position you appear on search results. You can also automatically pull these results with the Search Console API.

Troubleshooting

If you’re having trouble implementing or debugging structured data, here are some resources that may help you.

• If you’re using a content management system (CMS) or someone else is taking care of your site, ask them to help you. Make sure to forward any Search Console message that details the issue to them.
• Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results. For a list of common reasons why Google may not show your content in a rich result, see the General Structured Data Guidelines.
• You might have an error in your structured data. Check the list of structured data errors.
• If you received a structured data manual action against your page, the structured data on the page will be ignored (although the page can still appear in Google Search results). To fix structured data issues, use the Manual Actions report.
• Review the guidelines again to identify if your content isn’t compliant with the guidelines. The problem can be caused by either spammy content or spammy markup usage. However, the issue may not be a syntax issue, and so the Rich Results Test won’t be able to identify these issues.
• Troubleshoot missing rich results / drop in total rich results.
• Allow time for re-crawling and re-indexing. Remember that it may take several days after publishing a page for Google to find and crawl it. For general questions about crawling and indexing, check the Google Search crawling and indexing FAQ.
• Post a question in the Google Search Central forum.

Q&A (QAPage) structured data

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Q&A pages are web pages that contain data in a question and answer format, which is one question followed by its answers. For content that represents a question and its answers, you can mark up your data with the schema.org QAPage, Question, and Answer types.

Properly marked up pages are eligible to have a rich result displayed on the search results page. This rich treatment helps your site reach the right users on Search. For example, you might see a rich result for the user query “How do I remove a cable that is stuck in a USB port?” if the page has been marked up with answers to that question.

In addition to enabling your content for the rich result treatment, marking up your Q&A page helps Google generate a better snippet for your page. The content from the answers may appear in the basic result if the rich result is not shown.

How to add structured data 

Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. If you’re new to structured data, you can learn more about how structured data works.

Here’s an overview of how to build, test, and release structured data. For a step-by-step guide on how to add structured data to a web page, check out the structured data codelab.

1. Add the required properties. Based on the format you’re using, learn where to insert structured data on the page.
   
2. Follow the guidelines.
3. Validate your code using the Rich Results Test and fix any critical errors. Consider also fixing any non-critical issues that may be flagged in the tool, as they can help improve the quality of your structured data (however, this isn’t necessary to be eligible for rich results).
4. Deploy a few pages that include your structured data and use the URL Inspection tool to test how Google sees the page. Be sure that your page is accessible to Google and not blocked by a robots.txt file, the noindex tag, or login requirements. If the page looks okay, you can ask Google to recrawl your URLs.
   
5. To keep Google informed of future changes, we recommend that you submit a sitemap. You can automate this with the Search Console Sitemap API.

Examples

The following markup example includes the QAPage, Question, and Answer type definitions in JSON-LD:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>How many ounces are there in a pound?</title>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
    {
      "@context": "https://schema.org",
      "@type": "QAPage",
      "mainEntity": {
        "@type": "Question",
        "name": "How many ounces are there in a pound?",
        "text": "I have taken up a new interest in baking and keep running across directions in ounces and pounds. I have to translate between them and was wondering how many ounces are in a pound?",
        "answerCount": 3,
        "upvoteCount": 26,
        "datePublished": "2021-02-14T15:34-05:00",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Mary Stone",
          "url": "https://example.com/profiles/mary-stone"
        },
        "acceptedAnswer": {
          "@type": "Answer",
          "text": "1 pound (lb) is equal to 16 ounces (oz).",
          "image": "https://example.com/images/conversion-chart.jpg",
          "upvoteCount": 1337,
          "url": "https://example.com/question1#acceptedAnswer",
          "datePublished": "2021-02-14T16:34-05:00",
          "author": {
            "@type": "Person",
            "name": "Julius Fernandez",
            "url": "https://example.com/profiles/julius-fernandez"
          }
        },
        "suggestedAnswer": [
          {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "Are you looking for ounces or fluid ounces? If you are looking for fluid ounces there are 15.34 fluid ounces in a pound of water.",
            "upvoteCount": 42,
            "url": "https://example.com/question1#suggestedAnswer1",
            "datePublished": "2021-02-14T15:39-05:00",
            "author": {
              "@type": "Person",
              "name": "Kara Weber",
              "url": "https://example.com/profiles/kara-weber"
            },
            "comment": {
              "@type": "Comment",
              "text": "I'm looking for ounces, not fluid ounces.",
              "datePublished": "2021-02-14T15:40-05:00",
              "author": {
                "@type": "Person",
                "name": "Mary Stone",
                "url": "https://example.com/profiles/mary-stone"
              }
            }
          }, {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": " I can't remember exactly, but I think 18 ounces in a lb. You might want to double check that.",
            "upvoteCount": 0,
            "url": "https://example.com/question1#suggestedAnswer2",
            "datePublished": "2021-02-14T16:02-05:00",
            "author": {
              "@type": "Person",
              "name": "Joe Cobb",
              "url": "https://example.com/profiles/joe-cobb"
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

Guidelines

For your Q&A page to be eligible for this rich treatment, you must follow these guidelines:

• General structured data guidelines
• Search Essentials
• Content Guidelines

Content guidelines

• Only use the QAPage markup if your page has information in a question and answer format, which is one question followed by its answers.
• Users must be able to submit answers to the question. Don’t use QAPage markup for content that has only one answer for a given question with no way for users to add alternative answers; instead, use FAQPage. Here are some examples:Valid use cases:
  • A forum page where users can submit answers to a single question
  • A product support page where users can submit answers to a single question

  Invalid use cases:

  • An FAQ page written by the site itself with no way for users to submit alternative answers
  • A product page where users can submit multiple questions and answers on a single page
  • A how-to guide that answers a question
  • A blog post that answers a question
  • An essay that answers a question
• Don’t apply QAPage markup to all pages on a site or forum if not all the content is eligible. For example, a forum may have lots of questions posted, which are individually eligible for the markup. However, if the forum also has pages that are not questions, those pages are not eligible.
• Don’t use QAPage markup for FAQ pages or pages where there are multiple questions per page. QAPage markup is for pages where the focus of the page is a single question and its answers.
• Don’t use QAPage markup for advertising purposes.
• Make sure each Question includes the entire text of the question and make sure each Answer includes the entire text of the answer.
• Answer markup is for answers to the question, not for comments on the question or comments on other answers. Instead, use the comment property and Comment type for this type of content.
• Question and answer content may not be displayed as a rich result if it contains any of the following types of content: obscene, profane, sexually explicit, graphically violent, promotion of dangerous or illegal activities, or hateful or harassing language.
• Education-related Q&A pages, where the primary focus is to provide a correct answer to a user-submitted homework question, may be eligible for a Q&A carousel experience. These pages may only have a single answer that’s provided or selected by in-house experts (instead of users).
  Example: An education page where a user submitted a single question, and a top answer is selected by experts.

Structured data type definitions

This section describes the structured data types related to QAPage.

You must include the required properties for your content to be eligible for display as a rich result. You can also include the recommended properties to add more information to your structured data, which could provide a better user experience.

You can use Google’s Rich Results Test to validate and preview your structured data.

QAPage

The QAPage type indicates that the page is focused on a specific question and its answer(s). We will only use Question structured data from pages with QAPage markup. There must only be one QAPage type definition per page.

The full definition of QAPage is available at https://schema.org/QAPage.

The following table describes the properties of the QAPage type that are used by Google Search.

Question

The Question type defines the question that this page answers, and includes the answers, if any, to that question. Exactly one Question type is expected on the page, nested under the mainEntity property of the schema.org/QAPage. There must only be one Question type definition per page.

The full definition of Question is available at https://schema.org/Question. The Google-supported properties are the following:

Answer

The Answer type defines the suggested and accepted answers to the Question on this page. Define Answers inside the Question, as values for the suggestedAnswer and acceptedAnswer properties.

The following table describes the properties of the Answer type that is used within a Question.

The full definition of Answer is available at https://schema.org/Answer.

Comment

The Comment type can optionally be used to describe clarifications or discussions about the question or answer which are neither question nor answer. Define Comments inside the Question or Answer, as values for the comment property.

The full definition of Comment is available at https://schema.org/Comment.

Monitor rich results with Search Console

Search Console is a tool that helps you monitor how your pages perform in Google Search. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google Search results, but it can help you understand and improve how Google sees your site. We recommend checking Search Console in the following cases:

1. After deploying structured data for the first time
2. After releasing new templates or updating your code
3. Analyzing traffic periodically

After deploying structured data for the first time 

After Google has indexed your pages, look for issues using the relevant Rich result status report. Ideally, there will be an increase of valid items, and no increase in invalid items. If you find issues in your structured data:

1. Fix the invalid items.
2. Inspect a live URL to check if the issue persists.
3. Request validation using the status report.

After releasing new templates or updating your code 

When you make significant changes to your website, monitor for increases in structured data invalid items.

• If you see an increase in invalid items, perhaps you rolled out a new template that doesn’t work, or your site interacts with the existing template in a new and bad way.
• If you see a decrease in valid items (not matched by an increase in invalid items), perhaps you are no longer embedding structured data in your pages. Use the URL Inspection tool to learn what is causing the issue.

Analyzing traffic periodically 

Analyze your Google Search traffic using the Performance Report. The data will show you how often your page appears as a rich result in Search, how often users click on it and what is the average position you appear on search results. You can also automatically pull these results with the Search Console API.

Troubleshooting

If you’re having trouble implementing or debugging structured data, here are some resources that may help you.

• If you’re using a content management system (CMS) or someone else is taking care of your site, ask them to help you. Make sure to forward any Search Console message that details the issue to them.
• Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results. For a list of common reasons why Google may not show your content in a rich result, see the General Structured Data Guidelines.
• You might have an error in your structured data. Check the list of structured data errors.
• If you received a structured data manual action against your page, the structured data on the page will be ignored (although the page can still appear in Google Search results). To fix structured data issues, use the Manual Actions report.
• Review the guidelines again to identify if your content isn’t compliant with the guidelines. The problem can be caused by either spammy content or spammy markup usage. However, the issue may not be a syntax issue, and so the Rich Results Test won’t be able to identify these issues.
• Troubleshoot missing rich results / drop in total rich results.
• Allow time for re-crawling and re-indexing. Remember that it may take several days after publishing a page for Google to find and crawl it. For general questions about crawling and indexing, check the Google Search crawling and indexing FAQ.
• Post a question in the Google Search Central forum.

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