Release: May 10, 2021
Local & Reviews
1. Spanish now supported for Review’s canned responses
Opportunity: Improve engagement and user experience when responding to reviews
Solution: In addition to English and Hindi, you now have the ability to respond to reviews in Spanish in order to improve engagement.
If you have the canned responses available for your business locations, you can choose a response and from the drop-down choose a language you wish to post the response to the review. Click on ‘Post’ once you have chosen the language.
2. Google Posts Business Location Identifier for Enterprise Customers
Opportunity: Improve user experience and process flow when choosing business locations for Google Posts
Solutions: We’d added the external alias, city, and country-code to every business location as identifiers when choosing business locations that you wish to publish Google Posts to.
3. Removal of address for service areas on Google My Business on the Listings Page
As it is inapplicable for service areas and only relevant for a business location, we’ve removed the address for service areas on Google My Business. You can view this change on the Listings Page on MPC under business information on Google My Business.
Note: This change will not Impact the Profile completeness score of the business.
4. Tooltip added to ‘Opening Date’ on the Profile Summary Screen
We’ve added a tooltip for ‘Opening Date’ (Date of establishment) to distinguish it from the Temporary Closed option just below it.
Schema Manager
1. Updated Schema Vocabulary as per the 12.0 update
Opportunity: Ensure tagged and published schemas are up-to-date with the latest Schema.Org vocabulary
Solution: Milestone structured data testing tool (MSTT) now supports the latest vocabulary 12.0 from Schema.Org
New Schemas
- AmpStory instead of AMP story
- SolveMathAction and MathSolver type for sites that can analyze a mathematical expression, potentially solving or simplifying it.
- SizeSpecification to support structured sizes and measurements
- SeekToAction type to be used as a value for the potentialAction property on a VideoObject type
- OccupationalExperienceRequirements type as an additional possible value for the existing experienceRequirements property
- HyperToc, HyperTocEntry types to support navigation and annotation within MediaObject content.
- EnergyConsumptionDetails represents information related to the energy efficiency of a product that consumes energy
New properties
- billingStart and billingDuration properties on type UnitPriceSpecification
- Added copyrightNotice and creditText to help improve interoperability between schema.org and IPTC metadata.
- Add a property eduQuestionType for questions that act as practice problems
- Boolean experienceInPlaceOfEducation property for JobPosting.
- Add number-valued property monthsOfExperience for use on OccupationalExperienceRequirements.
- Add hasCourse property to EducationalOccupationalProgram to specify which courses are components of a program.
- Add hasEnergyConsumptionDetails property for use on Product to indicate an EnergyConsumptionDetails item which in turn has a hasEnergyEfficiencyCategory property whose values are drawn from enumerations
- Add sizeGroup, sizeSystem, hasMeasurement, suggestedMeasurement, suggestedAge properties to support structured sizes and measurements.
- Add a layoutImage property to FloorPlan to clearly indicate an image that depicts the floorplan.
- Added to range of new priceComponentType property on type UnitPriceSpecification.
Reference: https://schema.org/docs/releases.html
2. Warning notifications for superseded or deprecated schema and its properties to ensure updating of latest schema vocabulary
Opportunity: Ensure tagged schemas are up-to-date with the latest Schema.Org vocabulary
Solution: We now have notification warnings across the schema workflow to ensure the tagged schemas and properties that are superseded or deprecated by Schema.Org are updated and accurate as per the latest vocabulary
For Example:
Schema Distribution widget:
Filter the schema that has just warnings on the widget, and click on the warnings against the URL where the schema or property has been implemented.
The warning will notify you that the schema or property has been superseded and the recommended schema type is mentioned as well.
Schema Audit Page:
On the Schema Audit page click on the warnings against the web page URL
Here too, against the superseded schema type or property, the warning is mentioned with the recommended schema type.
Schema Editor:
On the Schema Editor as well, when you click on ‘Save & Generate' the warning notification will call out the requirement to update the schema type or property.
