Google Supports New Schema Markup For Education Sites

Google is adding support for a new type of schema markup with the introduction of rich results for education sites.

Websites that provide content such as practice problems and math solver pages can use structured data to become eligible for the new rich results.

Google says practice problems and math assistance are the most requested content types from students ever since school was disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To make it easier for learners to find what they’re looking for, Google is rolling out new search features for these two popular content types.

The new features create opportunities for sites that offer this material to increase their visibility in Google and potentially drive more traffic.

Here’s more about Google’s new rich results and how education sites can be eligible for them.

Practice Problem Rich Results

Practice problems help students evaluate their understanding of a topic.

When searching for practice problems, Google will now show a selection of multiple choice questions in search results.

Sites can be eligible to appear in these rich results by implementing the new structured data for practice problems.

Google requires sites to mark up a minimum of two practice problems per concept. For example, two practice problems for the concept “quadratic equation”.

Sites are encouraged to add all recommended structured data properties so searchers can determine how relevant the content is to their education level.

“Relevance to the user, including topicality, grade level and curriculum standards, can be key considerations for users when they’re deciding on what learning material to use. In our studies, we’ve heard that users look for these signals to determine if learning content online matches what they are learning in school.”

At launch, Google says searchers will be able to explore close to a million practice problems from educational providers like BBC Bitesize, Byjus, Careers360, Chegg, CK12, Education Quizzes, GradeUp, Great Minds, Kahoot!, OpenStax, Toppr, Vedantu and more.

Math Solvers Rich Results

Google defines a math solver page as one that provides a tool to help users input equations and get a solution.

Math solver rich results allow users to enter equations in the Google search bar to find websites that have step-by-step answers.

Education sites can use the new math solver structured data to become eligible for rich results like the one shown above.

New Reports in Search Console

After implementing the required practice problem and math solver markup, site owners can use new reports in Google Search Console to check for any errors.

Rich results reports in Search Console show all errors, warnings, and valid items for web pages with structured data.

The reports can be used to understand what Google can or cannot read from the markup.

Site owners can troubleshoot rich result errors and, when errors are fixed, use the report to validate the changes.

This will trigger a process where Google recrawls the affected pages to check whether the the markup is now valid.

Sources: Google Search Central Blog