Page 5 - SEO Mad Scientist 2020 Report

Will Google Index Schema Based on Entity Association?

Test Setup:

We tested if Google would index
Schema based on entity association with
on-page content relating to Bob Marley,
the famous musician and songwriter. To
set up the test we created a page on our
website with generic references to
"Famous Male Singer and Songwriter"
and included a well-recognized image of
Bob Marley named bob-marley.jpg.

Then, we added in-depth Schema
markup for "Person" Bob Marley,
including personal info, links to his
website and wiki, as well as referencing
the image (bob-marley.jpg) as "Person".

Test Results: January 31, 2020

After we submitted the page for indexing, We performed a “site:” search for the root domain and
included + "Bob Marley" to specifically search for pages Google has associated with Bob Marley.
Google made no associations to the page for the term "Bob Marley", even with the marked-up
content. So the question remained, if Schema markup does help with SEO, what on-page factors
must coincide with the Schema to actually get that benefit?

Along with testing the indexation of Schema, we also included references in some tests to our
entity in the social media meta markup (what is used to display what it shows when posting to
Facebook or Twitter). These meta titles and descriptions did NOT pull any kind of result in the
SERPs. So just like Schema, we question if this data is used at all in determining rankings?

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