Google Video Ads and the Importance of Schema Markup

The search engine community is abuzz this week with news that Google is experimenting with autoplay video ads on the search engine results page. If this feature is rolled out across the board, you could buy these spots just like you can buy autoplay ads for Bing and Facebook.

There is also speculation that Google could soon add schema markup and structured data to its ranking algorithmFormulas or computational procedures used to solve complex computer problems.. For now, that data can be written into websites to show search engines and social media sites what to display about your site. Google has denied that it’s a ranking factor, but seems to be changing its tune.

Here’s what Google’s John Mueller said last week:

 “If we can recognize someone is looking for a car, we can say oh well, we have these pages that are marked up with structured data for a car, so probably they are pretty useful in that regard. We don’t have to guess if this page is about a car. So I think in the long run, it definitely makes sense to use structured data where you see that as being reasonable on the Web site.”

We will be experimenting with structured data and schema markup, and we’ll let you know what we find out. If you have questions about how schema is working on your site, contact one of our account specialists by calling 801-261-5700.