What are rich results?

How it works

When Google crawls a page with valid, supported markup, it records the page as eligible. At query time it decides whether showing the enhanced result is useful for that search, device, and location, and whether the site meets quality thresholds. Two pages with identical markup can see different outcomes.

The set of supported types changes. In 2023 Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health sites and stopped showing HowTo rich results. Review stars for a business's reviews of itself (self-serving reviews on LocalBusiness and Organization) were cut back in 2019. Always check Google's current Search Gallery before investing in a type.

Rich results do not raise rankings directly, but a listing that takes more space and answers more of the question can earn more clicks.

Example

A plain result shows: title, URL, two lines of text. The same recipe page with Recipe markup can show a thumbnail, star rating, review count, and total time:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Recipe",
  "name": "Cold Brew Concentrate",
  "image": "https://example.com/cold-brew.webp",
  "totalTime": "PT12H",
  "aggregateRating": { "@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "4.7", "ratingCount": "212" }
}

Test a URL or code snippet in Google's Rich Results Test to see which rich result types it is eligible for.

In WordPress

SEO plugins add most rich-result markup. Hydrogen SEO supports Article, Product, Recipe, Course, Event, Local Business, Breadcrumbs, FAQ, HowTo, and more, all server-rendered JSON-LD. Check eligibility with the Rich Results Test and track it in Search Console's Enhancements reports; see validate rich results.

Common mistakes

• Marking up content users cannot see, which violates Google's structured data guidelines.
• Missing required properties, so the page is not eligible at all.
• Treating a valid test as a promise of display.