Google displays rich snippets for the homepage

Structured data are being used by webmasters and SEOs since few years now and while there are various types of data that can apply in different situations, Google never allowed webmasters to benefit from rich snippets for the homepage, but it seems that it’s now the case, since June 3rd.

What are the structured data?

Structured data refers to a code that webmasters can add in their webpages, along with the HTML code, which will give more context to Google about the types of pages that the bot is scanning.

As a consequence, Google will be able to understand the content and the context of the page. For instance, if you sell sneakers online, you can use the structured data to “tell Googlebot” that:

• The page Googlebot scans is a product page.
• The product has a price and a currency.
• That you have stocks so that buyers can purchase.
• That customers left great reviews.
• …

Google will scan those information to understand the page and then, display them in search results.

Your pages will be more catchy which should result in a better CTR (Click Through Rate), and therefore, you will potentially get more organic traffic and sales. That’s the idea.

2014, rich snippets were not meant to be implemented in the homepage

If you implement the structured data in your pages, you will realise that some of them will not modify the way the links are displayed in search results but others do. That’s the case for the Product markup and once your links are “enhanced”, we talk about rich snippets.

Historically, Google did not display the rich snippets for the homepage. John Muller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, explained in StackExchange in 2014 that the “Reviews” should be used for a product or a service, in short, the homepage is too broad to be entitled to get rich snippets.

Since then, structured data that triggered rich snippets like the Reviews or more recently, the FAQ, were not displayed in Google Search. Until now.

2020, the homepage is now entitled to get rich snippets?

Surprisingly, since June 3rd, it seems that Google now allows the homepage to show rich snippets, including the Reviews and the FAQ, as you can see on screenshot below.

It’s still unsure whether this is a new feature or a test but it gives the possibility to webmasters to benefit for an enhanced snippet for one of the key page in an SEO strategy.

Based on the feedbacks that we received on Linkedin (below) and Twitter (in French), it seems that SEOs are quite surprised, yet excited, by this move from Google. Question is, how long will it last?

If you want to implement the Reviews and the FAQ structured data in your homepage, make sure that you use the JSON-LD markup, have a look at the Google guidelines and use Structured Data Testing Tool to verify that the implementation does not contain any errors.

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Isn’t it cool? Links look much more attractive and more useful information can be disclosed to the users, to help them to click the right page. Let’s see how long it will last, since search results might quickly look overwhelmed, and not sure that Google will like it.

Anyway, if you don’t know how to implement them in your pages, not only in your homepage, feel free to get in touch or to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

Implementing the FAQpages markup will be the topic of our next article.

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