Google Updates Article Structured Data: The structured data guidelines for the title property were changed for the structured data of the article
Google has updated the article structured data documentation to support the Article, NewsArticle, and Blog Posting schema types.
The updated guidelines affect the title property to make it consistent with the guidance on title elements and title links.
Google Updates Article Structured Data
Article structured data may be one of the most popular structured data types in use because so much content is in the form of many different types of articles.
Using structured data correctly is important as it can make a webpage worthy of rich results.
Article Structured Data and its types (NewsArticle and BlogPosting) allow publishers to structure different types of webpage information.
There are several structured data properties associated with the article-type schema. So, Google’s guidelines generally guide structured data types that are required or optional to be eligible for enhancement in search results.
Any change in guidance is usually followed by changes to the Structured Data Plugins.
Google eases guidance on headline structured data properties
The change in recommendations affects the title property that Google lists as recommended.
The title of an article is the title that is usually rendered in the title element in the metadata area.
Previously, Google had a limit on the number of characters in the title.
This is the basic recommendation: (link to Archive.org)
- “Article title. The value must not exceed 110 characters.”
- Google’s new guidance on the title attribute no longer limits the length of article titles:
- “Article title. Consider using a shortened title, as longer titles may be truncated on some devices.”
The new title guide brings it in line with Google’s guidelines for the title element (often referred to as the title tag) in the title link guide.
Title link guidance advises:
- “Write descriptive and concise text for your <title> elements.”
Google announcements the change as follows:
- “January 3: Removed the headline property’s 110-character limit in the Article structured data documentation.
- There is no hard and fast character limit. So, short titles are preferable because long titles may be truncated on some devices.
It is always a good practice to be concise, which means conveying as much information as possible in the least number of words. But it’s also fine to use as few words as necessary in a title, keeping in mind how the title may appear in Google’s search results.
