Why Are Your Rich Snippets Not Showing In Search Results?

When scrolling through search engine results pages (SERPs), users are quickly scanning for information that is relevant to their query. If you fail to make your pages visually attractive, you could be missing out on a lot of potential traffic. One of the most popular ways to stand out from the competition is by adding schema markup structured data to your website in order to obtain rich snippet results. However, if you have run into the trouble of your rich snippets not showing in search results, you’re not alone. That is a common problem that can have a few different causes. In this article, experts from our SEO agency in Chicago will go over them all so you can troubleshoot the issue and get your rich snippets back up and running.

What are rich snippets?

Rich snippets are a type of structured data that can be used to display your content in a more informative and visually appealing way on Google search result pages. This can help you attract more clicks and traffic to your site. And as search engine algorithms sometimes have trouble fully understanding product prices, star ratings, images, and similar – adding rich snippets to your website is a great way to provide additional information about your content to crawlers. That is why you need to carefully plan the implementation of rich snippets when creating a content strategy.

The Benefits of Using Different Types of Structured Data Markups

There are various types of structured data markups you can utilize, and the most popular include:

Reviews – A summary of a review or testimonial you can use to give social proof to potential customers before they even arrive on your website.
Product Info – A product schema markup is a great way to provide search engines with information about your product. For example, you can use it to show the price of a specific product and its image.
Ratings – Allows you to show star ratings from either individual customers or average ratings. This schema markup is especially powerful if your products or services were well-received by previous clients.
Recipes – This type of structured data shows specific information closely related to your recipes, such as preparation time, user reviews, and dish images.
Organization – This search results snippet is a powerful way to provide Google and users with important information about your business, such as working hours, address, phone number, logo, slogan, and more.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions rich snippets allow you to quickly provide users with answers to the questions that your page covers.
Breadcrumbs – A series of links that indicate the page’s hierarchy and help users navigate websites.
Carousel – They are made up of a series of images, each with its own title, description, and link. It is most commonly used for movies, recipes, and courses.

Reasons why rich snippets are not showing in search results

Rich snippets are a great way to stand out in the SERPs, but they’re not always guaranteed. Even if you do everything perfectly when configuring structured data markup, sometimes rich results might not show. You need to be aware that just like search result titles, rich snippets are usually determined by algorithms, so they won’t always appear in the way you expect. However, sometimes business owners unintentionally make mistakes that prevent them from getting rich snippet results. If you’re not satisfied with the way your pages appear in Google search results, consider the potential reasons why the most popular search engine is not showing rich snippets for your pages despite your best efforts:

Google still hasn’t crawled your site after you made changes

If you face the problem of rich snippets not showing in search results, and you have just recently implemented them, instead of making drastic changes, you should wait for bots to crawl your site and notice new schema markup. That could take a few days, so arm yourself with patience. However, if you don’t have time to spare, you can create a Google Search Console account, submit a URL update, and then request Google to index it. Still, keep in mind that you might not earn rich snippets results immediately after your site has been crawled. As it usually takes 2-12 weeks before you can notice changes, there is no need to panic immediately.

But if the problem persists, keep reading this article to learn about other potential reasons for rich snippets not showing in search results.

Using wrong image dimensions can be the reason for rich snippets not showing in search results

You are using images that don’t meet requirements or dimensions

If you fail to choose images that meet Google’s requirements, it might be another potential reason for rich snippets not showing in search results. Here is what you need to know before setting up rich snippets:

Dimensions of your images need to be at least 160×90 pixels without surpassing 1920×1080 pixels (with certain exceptions)
Don’t use a ratio aspect that is greater than 3.0
Your images need to be completely crawlable and indexable
Provide multiple images for various aspect ratios
Ensure images are relevant to your content

These are general guidelines, and there are cases in which you need to optimize your images in slightly different ways to minimize the chances of rich snippets not showing in search results:

For articles, images should be at least 1200px wide
For events, ensure the width of your image is at least 1920px
For logos, the minimal dimensions of your images should be 112x112px
For products, you need to make sure that they are clearly visible – so consider using a white background
For recipes, make sure to include images of prepared dishes
For videos, you need to provide a link that points to a thumbnail image

You are using rich snippets that are misleading or irrelevant

If your structured data markup doesn’t provide a better user experience from Google’s point of view, you might run into a problem of rich snippets not showing in search results. As search engine algorithms are very good at detecting inconsistencies between schema markup and page content, the best practice is to make your structured data markup as relevant as possible. However, you also need to pay close attention to the quality of your page. Although it is not an official factor when it comes to rankings, one of the metrics Google uses to analyze a page’s relevance is text to HTML ratio.

You haven’t configured schema markup correctly

When fixing problems with rich snippets for clients, our WordPress development agency in Chicago often finds technical mistakes that occurred during the code-writing process. For example, if you forget to close your HTML tags correctly, you won’t be able to obtain rich snippet results. Every time you add schema markup on one of your pages, you need to make sure it is configured correctly by using a structured data test tool. For this purpose, we recommend using either Rich Result Test by Google Search Console or Google Structured Data Testing Tool. The process is straightforward; you need to enter the URL of your page and select the search device type – either mobile or desktop. Analyzing errors and warnings might help you better understand why are your rich snippets not showing in search results.

Keep in mind that paying close attention to errors is more important, as these are usually the direct reason why Google is not creating rich snippets for your page. On the other hand, if you have valid reasons, you can ignore warnings. For example, when adding structured data for recipes, you must add an image, the name of the recipe, and ingredients – but you can skip adding nutritional value, video, and ratings.

Rich snippets can show on mobile devices while not showing on desktop, and vice versa

You haven’t checked if you are getting rich snippet results on other device types

Whether your rich snippets will show in search results or not largely depends on the device type that is used for browsing. For example, while your carousel might be displayed on smartphones and tablets, it might not appear for desktop users at all. So, before worrying about your rich snippets not showing in search results, make sure to check if the same thing happens on other devices. It all boils down to Google’s goal of providing users with the best possible experience while exploring the internet.

You have used more than one markup language

Structured data can be communicated to search engines using a variety of syntaxes. Google supports the following:

JSON-LD – According to Google, this is the recommended format for structuring data. It is based on JavaScript Object Notation.
RDFa – Adds a set of attribute-level extensions to HTML5, XHTML5, and various XML-based document types for embedding rich structured data. It can help search engines better understand the user-visible content and context of a web page.
Microdata – A HTML specification that you can use to nest structured data within an HTML file. It utilizes HTML tag attributes to label different parts of your content so that search engines can index it more accurately.

While you can use all of these syntaxes across your website, make sure not to mix them on a single page when trying to configure rich snippets. Not only will it increase the chances for mistakes to slip through undetected, but it will also make maintenance harder. Even if you decide to utilize two different structured data types on a single page, we advise you to use the same markup language for both. In fact, the best course of action would be to learn how to use one markup language across a whole website for obtaining search results snippets.

You are targeting keywords for which Google doesn’t typically display rich snippets

The Google algorithm adapts search results to provide the best search experience for a user based on a variety of factors, such as the user’s location, search history, type of device, and more. In some instances, it may prioritize one feature over another or decide that showing only a blue link is the best solution. That’s why for certain keywords or topics, the most popular search engine may decide not to show rich results at all.

However, if your website is not obtaining rich snippets for the same search terms that other websites do, you should check if you have configured structured data markup correctly. If you can’t find any errors, consider the overall quality of your website and see if you can identify weak areas.

There are other quality issues with your website

Overall low quality of your website might also be the reason for rich snippets not showing in search results. However, as many factors impact the quality of a website, it can take time to identify which area you need to strengthen. Here are the most common quality-related reasons why Google might not be showing structured data markups for your pages:

Low-quality content
Keyword stuffing
Slow page speed
Low authority
Your website is not mobile-friendly
A large number of obtrusive ads

Contact us if you need help with configuring structured data markups

You’ve tried everything but still failing to obtain rich snippets in Google search results? The best course of action is to contact professionals to identify the problem and apply the right solution for you.

By hiring top-notch experts from the SEO industry, our digital marketing agency can help you establish a strong online presence by fully optimizing your website for enhanced performance in search engines. Not only will we configure your structured data to achieve rich snippet results, but we will also craft a comprehensive SEO strategy that will help you attract more organic traffic. Feel free to get in touch today and introduce us to your business during a consultation call, so we can start working on your project on the shortest notice.