Google is testing a new type of Schema markup designed to make scientific data more easily understood by search engines. The web contains a vast amount of scientific metadata that Google has to extract from HTML to serve users seeking this information.
Now, Google has developed its own structured markup for scientific datasets. This allows webmasters to provide Google with specific “instructions” on how to interpret the scientific data on a page.
Google provides an example of a webpage containing historical snow levels, which could be marked up with data related to:
– Temporal coverage
– Time period
– Spatial coverage
– Citations
– Licenses
– And more
The scientific dataset markup is currently available for site owners to experiment with. It won’t affect search results immediately until its general rollout. However, the markup can be verified using the structured data testing tool.
Google indicates that the following datasets can be marked up with structured data:
– A table or a CSV file containing data
– A file in a proprietary format that includes data
– A collection of files that collectively form a meaningful dataset
– A structured object with data in another format suitable for processing with specialized tools
– Images that capture the data
– Anything that resembles a dataset to you
For more information on how to apply this new set of Schema markup, refer to Google’s help documentation.
