Topic structured data: all posts declared as "mainEntityOfPage"

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AI-generated summary

Structured Data Issue with mainEntityOfPage

rrit points out that in the structured data model, every single post is declared as mainEntityOfPage, which is incorrect. According to schema.org, there should only be one mainEntity or mainEntityOfPage per page.

rrit suggests that Google sees each page as its own context, allowing for one post to be declared as mainEntity per URL. For example, https://DOMAIN/t/SLUG/43 could have #post_1 as its mainEntity.

sam agrees and notes that using https://schema.org/DiscussionForumPosting for every post is incorrect. Instead, it should only be used for the first post, and subsequent posts should use https://schema.org/Comment. This approach would eliminate pagination issues and improve the structured data model.

rrit suggests an alternative approach, where the relations between DiscussionForumPostings are made clearer by using https://schema.org/about to declare the parent post inside each answer.

Example of Correct Structured Data Model

rrit shares an example of a working structured data model for forum posts, using XenForo. The example shows how to correctly use https://schema.org/DiscussionForumPosting for the first post and https://schema.org/Comment for subsequent posts.

In the example, the HTML code includes a script tag with the structured data in JSON format, using https://schema.org/DiscussionForumPosting for the first post and specifying the headline, articleBody, author, and other relevant properties.

1

In the structured data model there should be only one object declared as mainEntity / mainEntityOfPage.
See “mainEntity” - Background information - Data Model - schema.org

Right now every single post is declared to be the mainEntityOfPage.

Google sees every page (= url) as its own context. Thereby it is possible to declare one post for each url as mainEntity – e.g.

  • https://DOMAIN/t/SLUG/43: main entity is #post_1
  • https://DOMAIN/t/SLUG/43?page=2: main entity is one of #post_10 to #post_19
  • https://DOMAIN/t/SLUG/43?page=3: main entity is one of #post_20 to #post_29
  • […]

See also Discussion for schema.org on “pagination of ItemLists” and Google: pagination for ItemList · Issue #1714 · schemaorg/schemaorg · GitHub

  • pagination for ItemList · Issue #1714 · schemaorg/schemaorg · GitHub
  • pagination for ItemList · Issue #1714 · schemaorg/schemaorg · GitHub

The above excerpt from Google’s developer documentation might be outdated as it is missing right now: General Structured Data Guidelines | Google Search Central  |  Documentation  |  Google for Developers

2

Does this not relate to the use of: DiscussionForumPosting - Schema.org Type

We use this for every single post, it looks like we should only use it for the first post and then use Comment - Schema.org Type for the rest.

That way we get rid of all the repeat titles pagination stuff and and the rest of things that are not a good fit.

3

Google may not really care about sub-types like DiscussionForumPosting and map these to the ancestor type Article instead.
By doing this Discourse might look more like a blog with Articles plus Comments from Googles perspective.

Maybe another way is to make the relations between DiscussionForumPostings more clear:
e.g. by using about - Schema.org Property to declare the parent post inside each answer.

post_1 (mainEntityOfPage)
|
+-- post_2 (about post_1)
|
+-- post_3 (about post_1)
|   |
|   + post_4 (about post_3)
|   + post_6 (about post_3)
|
+ post_5 (about post_1)

There is a discussion on how to use DiscussionForumPosting:

One opinion - see: We have DiscussionForumPosting but no DiscussionForum... · Issue #125 · schemaorg/suggestions-questions-brainstorming · GitHub

The description of DisccussionForumPosting is “A posting to a discussion forum.”.

A typical forum is made up of categories. Categories contain forums, and a forum contains topics. A topic contains 1 or more forum posts.

The description seems to indicate that this schema is for an individual forum post but the example seems to show it is for a topic which can have multiple forum posts from multiple authors.

4

I stumbled upon a working structured data model (= Google makes rich snippets) for forum posts in the wild: XenForo

Google SERP mobile view

signal-2022-11-16-195847_002
signal-2022-11-16-195847_0021024×1485 157 KB

Google SERP desktop view

grafik
grafik860×330 98.2 KB

Technical details

e.g. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/

Heavily reduced HTML code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
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        <title>Headphones and the Harman target curve | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum</title>
        […]
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    <body>
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                "articleBody": "I recently started dabbling with EQ'ing my headphones (APO+Peace). I've been going back and fort with this with two of my headphones, the Hifiman Ananda and the Denon AH-D7200. With both of them, I think the Harman target profile sounds like...",
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        <h1>Headphones and the Harman target curve</h1>

        <ul>
            <li>
                <a href="/forum/index.php?members/spittiz.6175/" itemprop="name">spittiz</a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/">
                    <time datetime="2020-11-27T20:59:17+0000" title="Nov 27, 2020 at 8:59 PM">Nov 27, 2020</time>
                </a>
            </li>
        </ul>

        <nav>
            <ul>
                <li><a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/">1</a></li>
                […]
                <li><a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/page-18">18</a></li>
            </ul>
        </nav>

        <!-- Topic opening post -->
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            <section itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"></section>
            <header>
                <time datetime="2020-11-27T20:59:17+0000" title="Nov 27, 2020 at 8:59 PM" itemprop="datePublished">Nov 27, 2020</time>
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            <article>
                [post text]
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            </header>
            <article>
                <blockquote>
                    [quote text]
                </blockquote>
                [post text]
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            <time datetime="2020-11-28T02:03:35+0000" title="Nov 28, 2020 at 2:03 AM" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 28, 2020</time>
        </article>

        <article id="js-post-582634">[…]</article>

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    </body>
</html>
Reduced HTML source (click here to open) 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Headphones and the Harman target curve | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum</title>

        <meta name="description" content="I recently started dabbling with EQ&#039;ing my headphones (APO+Peace). I&#039;ve been going back and fort with this with two of my headphones, the Hifiman Ananda and..." />
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        <meta property="twitter:description" content="I recently started dabbling with EQ&#039;ing my headphones (APO+Peace). I&#039;ve been going back and fort with this with two of my headphones, the Hifiman Ananda and the Denon AH-D7200. With both of them..." />

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    </head>
    <body>
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        <header>
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                <li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem">
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                    <span itemprop="name">Headphones and Headphone Amplifier Reviews</span>
                    </a>
                    <meta itemprop="position" content="3" />
                </li>
            </ul>
        </nav>

        <h1>Headphones and the Harman target curve</h1>

        <ul>
            <li>
                <a href="/forum/index.php?members/spittiz.6175/" itemprop="name">spittiz</a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/"><time datetime="2020-11-27T20:59:17+0000" title="Nov 27, 2020 at 8:59 PM">Nov 27, 2020</time></a>
            </li>
        </ul>

        <nav>
            <ul>
                <li><a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/">1</a></li>
                <li><a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/page-2">2</a></li>
                <li><a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/page-3">3</a></li>
                <li><a href="/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-and-the-harman-target-curve.17914/page-18">18</a></li>
            </ul>
        </nav>

        <article id="js-post-582475">
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