Nulumia
Well-known member
Schema Improvement System
An overview on schema related work for those interested. I earlier replied to this thread regarding the discrepency between ranking non-thread content (resources, etc) vs threads. I've since encountered the same issue on a very large and clear scale in a private project, and have been digging into the causes of this in Xenforo.One of the factors I've turned up is what may be non-ideal Schema.org implementation within XF and addons. While there is currently schema built-in, uses of such components as Resource Manager, articles, blogs etc in either 1. Custom implementations (stretching the addon to fit a purpose slightly different than what it was intended) or 2. Not fully optimizing the schema to fit your use case, may have an adverse effect.
Google & schema
Schema.org markup is not a direct ranking factor, as in it's not weighed directly in the algorithms (yet). However, schema markup does directly affect your Google rich results and helps Google better understand your pages and content, which in turn may affect whether it believes showing a search result to a visitor is the correct choice. This means schema has an indirect impact on your rankings, and, in my current belief, possibly more negative impact if you get it wrong, than positive.
Focusing on that last bit, I have a current hunch within Xenforo that not optimizing your schema, or having badly configured or conflicting schema can have a drastic negative effect on your search results, and is a far more important factor than the benefit of having good schema in general.
I recently identified some major schema conflicts on a private case which was nearly tossing out an entire section of their site. Fixes are already showing an influx of positive trends in Search Console.
Regardless of good vs bad, it's important to have it correct either way.
Solutions?
I've already blueprinted an entire schema enhancement system going into this addon, with some of the following highlights:
- Enhanced Schema
Enabling this option will augment all existing schema within Xenforo with full range of recommended and supported tags - Full, comprehensive missing schema
I am sweeping all across Xenforo and supported addons to implement compatibile schema markup - Branding & Organization
A full brand setup page which will render out schema about your site brand & identity, such as on the homepage. Integrates traits such as "SameAs" to reinforce social signals and connect other references to your site. - Purpose-based syntax
Supported addons will have schema setup added directly to their main settings (Ie Resource Manager, AMS, etc). For example, you'll be able to change the main schema type of resources to things like Article, CreativeWork, FAQPage, NewsArticle, etc. As such changes support and/or disallow certain tags, the addon will automatically adjust syntax accordingly. - Conflict-readiness
Did you know Google decides its own rules on how Schema.org tags can or can't be used? That's right, Google overrides the official implementation of Schema.org itself and may flag you for errors and fail validation if you're not "in the know" of Google's policy shifts. The addon will also pull in and adjust these changes so you will not be flagged. - Inheritance and per-content settings
Eventually, schema additions will be set at the category level as well, and inherited similar to category indexing. As such, manual schema settings will also be provided on a per-content basis, such as setting the @Type, Name, Image, etc directly on a thread, resource or article.