Google has revised the structured data documentation for Structured Data Carousels (beta), highlighting rich results for eligible topics. The updated guidelines specify requirements and explicitly note that the rich results are confined to a single geographical region.
The beta version of Structured Data Carousels helps web publishers specializing in travel, local services, and shopping to integrate structured data into their pages. This structured data makes them eligible for a new carousel-rich result in search results, showcasing their content prominently in a horizontally scrollable list.
This feature, using ItemList structured data, is accessible for webpages using LocalBusiness, Product, and Event Schema.org properties. Each tile within the carousel displays comprehensive details like price, rating, dates, and images in a visually appealing and interactive format.
The revised documentation emphasizes the importance of using the beta carousel structured data on a summary page. This summary page should link to other pages providing more detailed information. It’s clarified that the linked pages containing the details do not necessarily require the same structured data.
The old documentation contained the following instructions:
“Add markup to a single page (also known as a single, all-in-one-page list) that contains all list information, including full text of each item. For example, a list of the top hotels in a location, all contained on one page.”
The new documentation now explains it like this:
“Pick a single summary page that contains some information about every entity in the list. For example, a category page that lists the “Top hotels in Paris”, with links out to specific detail pages on your site for more information about each hotel.”
There is also an addition of an example for clarification:
“For example, if you have a “Things to do in Switzerland” article that lists both local events and local businesses.
Add the required properties to that summary page. You don’t need to add markup to the detail pages in order to be eligible for this beta feature.”
There is also an entirely new paragraph:
“Your site must have a summary page and multiple detail pages. Currently, this feature isn’t designed to support other scenarios, such as an all-in-one page where the “details” are anchor points within the same page.
The markup must be on a summary or category page, which is a list-like page that contains information about at least three entities and then links out to other pages on your site for more information on those entities. While you don’t need to add markup to the detail pages, you must include the detail page URLs in your summary page’s markup.”
Finally, a few edits have been made to a brief paragraph to ensure clarity that the structured data is intended for a standalone summary page.
Here is the previous version for reference:
“The canonical URL of the item detail page (for example, hotel or vacation listing on that page). All URLs in the list must be unique, but live on the same domain (the same domain, or sub or super domain as the current page).”
This is the new version (new wording is italicized):
“The canonical URL of the item detail page (for example, the standalone page for a single hotel or vacation listing that was referenced in the summary page). All URLs in the list must be unique, but live on the same domain (the same domain, or sub or super domain as the summary page).”
The changelog in Google’s documentation clarifies that the structured data is intended for use on summary pages. However, it does not mention that the updated documentation also provides more details on the geographic eligibility of the new rich results features.
Here’s what the changelog says:
“Clarified that the beta carousel feature is for sites that have a summary page that links out to other detail pages on their website. The markup must be on the summary page, and you don’t need to add markup to the detail pages in order to be eligible for this feature.”
However, the changelog is inaccurate as it overlooks an additional paragraph that specifies the geographic limitations of this rich results feature. The previous version did not mention which countries are eligible for the beta-rich results.
This information was initially included in the announcement of the new feature but was absent from the documentation. The new documentation rectifies this omission by providing additional content regarding geographic eligibility.
“Feature availability
This feature is in beta and you may see changes in requirements or guidelines, as we develop this feature. If your business is based in EEA, or serves users in EEA, and you would like to learn more and express interest in these new experiences, you can start by filling out the applicable form (for flights queries, use the interest form for flights queries).This feature is currently only available in European Economic Area (EEA) countries, on both desktop and mobile devices. It’s available for travel, local, and shopping queries. For shopping queries, it’s being tested first in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK.”
It’s surprising that Google initially omitted important information about the availability of the feature in the original Carousels (beta) documentation and then failed to mention in the changelog that it was later included. This information is significant, and its addition to the updated documentation should have been acknowledged in the changelog.
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