Hello. We are currently receiving this message in our Google Search Console. I’m not entirely sure what it signifies. Could I get more clarity on this issue? Is there a solution? Additionally, I would like to mention that we have tried using multiple themes for the platform, but the same error persists. [2023-12-04_00-01-08] [2023-12-04_00-01-24]

Hello, hiccup! Structured Data helps provide search engines with more context, essentially. Google Search doesn’t find an optional url field in that topic. You can see on validator.schema.org that it’s perfectly valid without any warnings. There is nothing to worry about. That said, if Google Search highlights this field, that would be a valid reason to add it in Discourse.

As @Arkshine explained above this is not a bug but rather a suggestion from Google to add optional field in the schema. I’ll look into it.

From the other thread: [image]Google structured data for forums and profile pages Y’all can check your Google Search Console report, but when I go to https://search.google.com/search-console/r/discussion-forum and check my forum, I see this: [image] Why items are invalid: Either “text”, “image”, or “video” should be specified Missing field “datePublished” Missing field “author” Improve item appearance Missing field “url” Missing field “text” (in “comment”) So there does appear to be more work to do here. So, yes, “url” is optional, but there are actual genuine errors here, too.

[image] Dan Fabulich: So, yes, “url” is optional, The itemprop="url" helps google to combine multiple Comment blocks on different URLs belonging to the same topic. [image]Google structured data for forums and profile pages Important: the itemprop url must point to the first page of the topic in crawler view: e.g. https://example.org/t/topic-title/1234 not https://example.org/t/topic-title/1234?page=2 See DiscussionForumPosting → Recommended properties → url url: The canonical URL of the discussion. In multi-page threads, set this property to th first page URL. For a single discussion, this is usually the current URL.

[image] Dan Fabulich: but there are actual genuine errors here, too. I tried to reproduce the errors you are seeing by testing meta topics in Google Rich Results Test, but I don’t see any errors. Can you provide a link to the topic for which Google is showing errors?

The first thing you should note is that the link you showed indicates that the link does not have Discussion Forum Schema. That link has “Breadcrumbs” schema only, no “Discussion Forum” schema at all. That’s happening because you’re testing the link in “smartphone” mode, and not in “desktop” mode. https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=TlLcA6saLMo3BrxbQYnFuw [image] When you switch the link to desktop testing, “Discussion Forum” schema appears, and it flags the “missing field url” issue. https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=uy3Ub3IwJiIuaMh-7YUu6g https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result/r%2Fdiscussion-forum?id=uy3Ub3IwJiIuaMh-7YUu6g [image] To reproduce the critical errors, you have to test a long thread with the ?page=2 URL parameter, like this one: https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-air-theme/197703?page=2 https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result?id=n8ZJes2JomqJ5vQiprNB5w https://search.google.com/test/rich-results/result/r%2Fdiscussion-forum?id=n8ZJes2JomqJ5vQiprNB5w [image]

I should point out, I think it’s an important bug in Discourse that the schema does not show up in smartphone mode. Google wouldn’t know to flag it (because Google only flags errors in schema that’s present), but smartphone crawling and indexing is the default for Google for years now, so it’s important that any schema appear in smartphone mode and in desktop mode.

The issue described in first post plus some other issues has been fixed in this commit: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/d9ca6c3bb90c15d32b3f2ece1709522be65fb690 Thanks for the suggestions here @rrit! :+1: [image] Dan Fabulich: To reproduce the critical errors, you have to test a long thread with the ?page=2 URL parameter This is happening because the first post is not included from second page onwards in crawler view. @sam should we include first post on all the pages in crawler view to fix the schema issues? :thinking:

[image] Arpit Jalan: should we include first post on all the pages in crawler view to fix the schema issues? No I don’t think so, duplicating content never ends well, are there other options

[image] Sam Saffron: are there other options The other option would be to replace microdata schema with JSON-LD (which Google recommends). This would decouple rendered data from structured data and will also work on mobile (as Dan pointed out above). We’re already using JSON-LD schema in solved plugin.

Discussion Forum Schema improvements

Product Support

dfabulich (Dan Fabulich) December 17, 2023, 11:00pm 7

From the other thread:

So, yes, “url” is optional, but there are actual genuine errors here, too.

Topic		Replies	Views
Google Structured Data -- Invalid Article Schema Product Support	39	9456	July 31, 2018
Different schema type for Topics and Posts Feature	16	4254	January 1, 2024
Google structured data for forums and profile pages Feature seo	13	2006	January 1, 2024
Missing field 'text' (in 'mainEntity.suggestedAnswer') Bug	31	1136	October 19, 2026
Removing the /2, /3, /4, etc links for each reply within a topic URL Development seo	33	4791	October 13, 2024

Discussion Forum Schema improvements

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