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** EDIT Feb 2016 - Finally JSON-LD seems to be working now in SERPS, with extremely fast changes-to-index time, assuming you have everything with Google merchant center feeds syncd and linked. Make sure the price, stock, and identifier are the same on your JSON-LD as it is on the Google shopping feed. New organization->localbusiness types are live, organization reviews are live... however JSON-LD feed alt= endpoints still do not exist, the homepage schema defining custom site name is not active, and G support for schema itemList/dateModified is still questionable. You can still get pagination results and date modified snippets by using literal text strings in your view/template Showing 1-28 of 8977 Results (321 Pages)and Last updated on February 3rd 2016.

To proceed to a deeper exploration of JSON-LD support, see these:

Original Post Below:

Google seems to be flip flopping JSON-LD -> Schema.org product [or other types of] snippets. The snippets verify without error in both the testing tool and long term (10+ months) across 5 properties in GWT search console. The snippets have been applied to index, removed, applied, and removed again, seemingly not being applied again in regards to various facets. Since they worked in the past via microdata, and were applied long term, I assume it's due to the switch to JSON-LD.

I have not found any official docs nor examples that say "Google will support and render products snippets that use JSON-LD". Same thing with breadcrumb snippets and review looping. All I see is a handful of Google examples for events, movies, recipes, very basic [incomplete] organization etc. This seems strange to me considering the sheer amount of ecom pages using product snippets trumps the amount of movies, recipes, and events combined.

So the question is, does Google officially support, index, and render product markup using JSON-LD? If so, can anyone point me to a live example to verify this?

** This question is not intended to be "opinion/recommendation based"....im looking for a specific link and subsequent SERP result [evidence] showing that JSON-LD products/etc are indeed rendered within Google.com realm as of late August 2015.

** EDIT Nov 16 2015 - Another annoying caveat has been found. Google merchant center validates certain shopping feed fields such as condition, stock, and price against live microdata. However, it seems to not recognize JSON-LD.... although, as stated above, it's recommended to use in all the G examples, and it validates the snippet test. So due to this, your merchant center account could be suspended because of "differences in presentation data"

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  • 1
    at the moment the JSON-LD I've used does work but the structured data tool does not recognize it
    – Mousey
    Aug 26, 2015 at 13:03
  • 1
    @Mousey thats interesting...we have the opposite. The snippet test recognizes our LD + Schema.org but it "doesnt work" minus random weeks here and there (which might be Google testing)
    – dhaupin
    Aug 26, 2015 at 13:14
  • 1
    forget to mention mine was embedded in javascript. Some examples are on schema.org for Product - schema.org/Product
    – Mousey
    Aug 26, 2015 at 13:27
  • 1
    @Mousey do you mean it's just a JSON array between script tags (ie, the LD examples on that page), or are you doing something different? Curious now how you got them to fire live :) Do you have a link or something showing them live and making the SERP widgets?
    – dhaupin
    Aug 26, 2015 at 14:20
  • 1
    it's a javascript that creates the JSON-LD using variables
    – Mousey
    Aug 27, 2015 at 20:07

2 Answers 2

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+100

Update 2016: The documentation got updated and it no longer contains the note. So now JSON-LD seems to be supported for the Products Rich Snippet.


Google’s documentation for the Products Rich Snippet says for the single product page:

We are in the process of implementing JSON-LD support for this Rich Snippet type. At the current time, we recommend using microdata or RDFa.

So this might explain why it wouldn’t always work, currently.

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  • 1
    Dude thank you, I swear I've looked over that page multiple times and never seen that alert bar!
    – dhaupin
    Aug 25, 2015 at 16:10
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    Ah i see now, its because they added that alert sometime after June 30th - web.archive.org/web/20150630180837/https://…
    – dhaupin
    Aug 25, 2015 at 19:51
  • 1
    @dhaupin Is it that Google is taking plays out of the Microsoft playbook?? Oh! Quick! Sneak it in before we get caught. Maybe no-one will notice and we can point to the page and say see.... we told you! And no I am not a conspiracy theorist- just because Jesse Ventura is my uncle, that has nothing to do with any opinion I might have.
    – closetnoc
    Aug 25, 2015 at 22:31
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    @closetnoc HAH Ventura. He does have a few good thoughts here and there, kinda. Its like that though i think....hype it up for months just to say, oh wait, you didn't see that tiny alert box that some sympathetic G dev snuck into a buried support doc? Yet they do PSA for derp stuff like "When you go on vacation, don't put noindex on your site". This LD non-support seems more important to PSA, else thousands of sites lose their snippets jumping on the new spec. Mueller, any thoughts on maybe letting people know this stuff en masse (ie webmaster blog)?
    – dhaupin
    Aug 26, 2015 at 14:25
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    I've literally traversed the known internet looking for a oage properly using json ld product snippets. Shame on Google. Oct 2, 2015 at 3:50
1

Finally, after the latest algo core update it seems lots more JSON-LD schema is functional and sticking in SERPS (knock on wood). Its been sticking for about a week, hopefully it stays for all the OP's of the world to enjoy. Here is an example:

enter image description here

This is built from the following script template:

<script type="application/ld+json"> {
"@context" : "http://schema.org",
"@type" : "Product",
"name" : "A cleaned title of the item",
"image" : "https://www.example.com/img.jpg",
"description" : "A trimmed and cleaned description.",
"model" : "MODEL-1234",
"itemCondition" : "http://schema.org/NewCondition",
"productID" : "12345678",
"brand" : {
    "@type" : "Brand",
    "name" : "Acme Widget Company"
},
"aggregateRating" : {
    "@type" : "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue" : "5",
    "reviewCount" : "1"
},
"offers" : {
    "@type" : "Offer",
    "priceCurrency" : "USD",
    "price" : "2109",
    "availability" : "http://schema.org/InStock",
    "seller" : {
        "@type" : "Organization",
        "name" : "A Sweet Store"
    }
}}
</script>

Also confirmed, Google merchant center shopping feed is [still] able to use the JSON-LD on landing pages for cross-source data validation. I have no way to cite this besides microdata validate/mismatch errors disappearing after supporting more types of product templates with LD. The auto update price seems to work too resulting in a general trifecta of linked data within the G environment.

As a bonus, it also seems they are able to parse reviews better without markup or highlighting (this TPL didn't have schema for reviews until today):

enter image description here

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