Websites are bracing themselves for a drop in organic traffic, as Google has announced that it will be showing fewer rich results in its search results. This specifically relates to the search engine showing less FAQ rich results across the search result snippets and restricting How-To rich results to desktop devices.
This update is planned to roll out worldwide over the coming week.
FAQ Changes:
Google said the FAQs, FAQPage structured data, rich results will only be shown for “well-known, authoritative government and health websites.”
For lesser authority websites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly, Google added.
If you site suffers a decrease in visibility, there will be nothing you can do about it. This is because the results will be fully automated and algorithmic.
HowTo Changes:
According to Google, customers using mobile devices will no longer see the HowTo structured data, rich results. Instead, this will be purely available on desktop computers only.
Google said that “with mobile indexing, Google indexes the mobile version of a website as the basis for indexing: to have How-To rich results shown on desktop, the mobile version of your website must include the appropriate markup.”
Monitor Performance:
We recommend that you keep an eye on your visitor levels over the coming weeks. Google Analytics and the performance statistics from Google Search Console will highlight any drop in clicks coming from Google Search.
Google wrote, “For both of these items, you may also notice this change in the Search Console reporting for your website. In particular, this will be visible in the metrics shown for FAQ and How-To search appearances in the performance report, and in the number of impressions reported in the appropriate enhancement reports. This change does not affect the number of items reported in the enhancement reports. The search appearances, and the reports, will remain in Search Console for the time being.”
