a website's structured data success story

A website’s structured data success story August 19th, 2015

Jarno van Driel SEO Specialist

@JarnoVanDriel#SmartDataWeek

1. Introduction


Jarno van Driel • In-‐house SEO for Sanoma Digital NL

• Degree in Mechanical Engineering

• Working on the web since 1998

• Semantics enthusiast since 2001


As a moderator for the Google+ community Semantic Search Marketing I sometimes help out with structured data issues


https://plus.google.com/communities/103048251221048356778

Which is how I ran into CosmeticSurg.net autumn 2013


http://www.cosmeticsurg.net

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?


A pretty straightforward request


We called


But wouldn’t you know it…


Spring 2012 we noticed the site’s traffic and leads were on a steadily declining path


I compared their data


Houston, we have a problem!


We think we got hit by Panda


No, not this one


This one! New and important site quality algorithms


Which Google deployed worldwide less than 2 months after introducing them


Algorithms based on ideas, research and a mindset that Google engineer Amit Singhal tried to clarify


We responded by doing a range of things


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.


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


Nothing worked, so we want to see if structured data can turn things around


Turning Panda around with structured data! Have you lost your whiskers?


Then again, interesting concept -‐ and the site’s got plenty of content to work with


You know, what if…


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


2. Moving ahead


A. Investigating the evidence


Only 1 business showed up in the SERPs where there should have been 2


PracticeSurgery center


A hot topic


Oh! the joy of more


Surgeon


What can we do about this?


We are going to develop our own knowledge graph


You two! Go build that graph


Surgery center schema.org/MedicalClinic

Surgeon schema.org/Person

Practice schema.org/Physician


schema.org/sameAs


But just when we were about to release, Google updated Panda (May 16th 2014 )


We adjusted plans and delayed release until the end of June


And calmly waited to see if something would happen


Bill Slawski SemTechBiz, August 19th 2014


http://bit.ly/SemanticSearchSemTechBiz2014

http://bit.ly/SemanticSearchSemTechBiz2013

2 different types of businesses, sharing the same NAP information, showing up in the SERPs


His Royal Highness – Triples – King of the Graph


Want to know more about knowledge graphs and triples? Go to: http://bit.ly/KeyTakeawaysSemTechBiz2013


http://bit.ly/KeyTakeawaysSemTechBiz2013

B. Social Media optimization


The site’s blog contained some markup but there were still some big gaps to fill


Markup was added for Twitter’s Summary Card


and Summary Card with Large Image


og:article markup was added for Facebook


But getting Google+ right needed some sorting out


Schema.org types changed and graphs had to be rebuilt


Which led to the desired result for Google+ shares


But overall


Social Media requires more than just adding some markup


3. The hunt for Panda


After the upgrade, Sessions refused to move


Time for some further investigation


Loads of GWT reports showed overlapping queries and pages


Looking at the site this made sense – plenty of topical overlap


Could it be Panda is struggling to tell Things apart?


The moment when Amit Singhal finally started to make sense


What can we do about this?


We’ll run a test to see if it helps when we specify what the articles are about


An example of an article about 2 topics (text values)


But alas, Sessions still wouldn’t move


We think we need more triples


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?


You two! Go build Next Gen graphs


MedicalProcedure + Service Thing

Article

aboutabout


schema.org/sameAs


An example of an article about 2 topics (entities)


Will this work?


Sessions finally took off


And reached heights never reached before


Even after a new Panda update


4. Satisfying the skeptic


Structured data tracking in GA!

You know what you can do with that?


Google Tag Manager + Google Analytics http://bit.ly/ImplementAndTrackStructuredData


Having this type of data in GA is just the beginning


The real fun starts when you export GA’s enriched data


All pages Landing Page – All Sessions

Imagine you'd like to know what the effects of adding ‘about’ triples were


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


schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – All Sessions


schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – Pageviews / Session


schema:Article (Subject) Landing Page – Avg Session Duration


schema:MedicalProcedure schema:Service (Object) Landing Page – All Sessions

Over at the ‘Object’ side of the triples


schema:MedicalProcedure schema:Service (Object) Landing Page – All Sessions


Hail, Triples – King of the Graph


@JarnoVanDriel

Feel like doing your own analysis? You can! The datasets used can be found at: http://bit.ly/structureddatasuccess

#SmartDataWeek

http://bit.ly/structureddatasuccess

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



twitter.com/JarnoVanDriel linkedin.com/pub/jarno-‐van-‐driel/75/470/36a

plus.google.com/u/0/+JarnovanDriel

Questions?

https://twitter.com/JarnoVanDriel

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jarno-van-driel/75/470/36a

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JarnovanDriel

a website's structured data success story

Internet