Setup rich snippets for rating items

Setting up rich snippets in GD Rating System is done in two parts: global settings, and individual posts settings.

Before we go through the process of setting up Rich Snippet’s support in the GD Rating System plugin, make sure you read about rich snippets and how search engines use them, including what Google requires for the snippets to be considered for inclusion in the SERP.

Global Settings

Global Settings require you to set up the Organization information because most snippets require for the organization name and logo to be included. Next, you need to enable meta boxes to be added to different post types you want to have extra control over the snippets.

Configuring Post Type

And, for each post type, you can configure defaults for generating the snippet. But, this is usually not enough! Most snippet types require additional information that has to be provided for each post/page individually through the metabox for the rich snippets.

To configure rich snippet for the post type, you need to set snippet type first and select one of the supported types, or select Custom Type. Custom type allows you to set the rich snippet type to any custom rich snippet not directly supported by the plugin, and by default name for the Custom Type used is ‘Thing’ and that is basic snippet type defined by the Schema.org. If you set to Custom Type, make sure to check out Custom Type settings for each post type, set the name to use, and what additional data to include.

Few recommendations

• Make sure to set up the Organization information and upload a logo.
• Configure default snippet settings for each post type.
• Set JSON-LD for the snippet Display format, other methods will be removed in the future.
• Configure snippet types for each post type, and make sure to check other settings.

Individual post settings

Due to the changes Google introduced, you need to make sure that each snippet includes the required information, and that means that you have to set up each post individually. Even with the global settings, you can modify the individual posts to change the rating/review methods and format for display. This metabox also provides a preview of the generated snippet and link to Google test for the snippet

The most important tab is Snippets, where you actually select and configure the snippet data.

Some snippet types are simple, with only one or two extra fields to include. But, some might require a lot more, and to be sure that snippet is accepted, you must configure the snippet properly, and make sure you test that it is all OK. Again, there is no guarantee that Google will use snippets data.

Rich Snippet Tools

The plugin includes rich snippet tools that can be used to reset or remove individual posts snippet settings. These tools don’t affect global plugin settings for snippets. You can remove individual posts (for selected post types) related to snippet type, snippet display…, and it can turn off rating inclusion for some snippet types that don’t allow for ratings to be included.

Switch to Custom Snippet Type

Let’s say you want to switch all posts to a custom snippet type, and you want to define your own snippet name. If you edited some of the posts, each post can contain different settings. You can use the Rich Snippet Tools to reset the snippet settings for ‘posts’, and you would configure tool like this:

This means, that for all ‘posts’, the plugin will remove all individual snippet settings related to display, a rating method, snippet type and custom snippet type name. After you do this, you can open the global Rich Snippet Settings (Settings -> Rich Snippets), and configure settings for the ‘Posts’ by setting Snippet Type to ‘Custom Type’ and setting Custom Type Name to the Snippet type you want to use (default is ‘Thing’). Also, select what to include with the snippet.