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Google announced yesterday that the Rich Results Test Tool is out of beta - yay! Google announced with that news that the Structured Data Testing Tool will be deprecated at some point.
Google said "the Rich Results Test fully supports all Google Search rich result features." But the deal is, SEOs are already missing the Structured Data Testing Tool, before it even is gone.
The rich results testing tool launched in 2017 and the structured data testing tool was revamped in 2015 and originally launched in 2009. So the tool is essentially 10+ years old.
But like I said, SEOs are not happy it is going away because the rich results test tool does not validate and test all rich result types. Here are some, not all, just some of the complaints:
You (Google) had a chance here to use your VAST resources to maintain and improve the existing SDTT and help enrich the web.
— Barry Adams 🛠⚙️⌨️ (@badams) July 7, 2020
Instead you retreat back in to your own narrow little view of the web and what you want it to do.
The new tool is painfully slow. The old tool showed a structured data result for the URL tested above. It provided useful feedback and supported industry-wide standardization.
— Ian Lurie (@IanLurie) July 7, 2020
The truth is, you're replacing a great structured data tool for an inferior Google-specific one.
It will be bigger challenge... @googlewmc @JohnMu please do something
— Pratik Nakrani (@PRNsit) July 8, 2020
Yeah, I feel by merging the tool it should also allow us to see the code which is available in the SDTT and not in Rich Result Tool.
— Ramesh Singh (@ramesh_s_bisht) July 7, 2020
... In the meantime you might want to take a look at these free structured data validators:
— Aleyda Solis (@aleyda) July 7, 2020
* The Structured Data Viewer: https://t.co/7h3V5SkQqe
* The Bing Webmaster Markup Validator: https://t.co/HFKRwzTrpn
* The Yandex Structured Data Validator: https://t.co/77tP2aKscW pic.twitter.com/GPgvcvVsv2
Great points & observations by @IanLurie @tentakellady and @LogikSEO:
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) July 7, 2020
What will we use to QA Schema going forward if not the Structured Data Testing Tool?
The Rich Results Test only reports back on Schema that is eligible for rich results.
Most Schema properties are not. https://t.co/bHhT22lkwe
Gah! Alerts inside the structured data testing tool too! I'm not a fan of this change, if you're looking to validate schema read via code, and unsure of your syntax, etc...The SDTT is far, far superior than the Rich Results tool. cc: @JohnMu pic.twitter.com/pk9Vu7cWDB
— Dan Brackett (@DanBrackett) July 7, 2020
I'm still sad about SDTT. Have a meme. pic.twitter.com/XtVJaDo3ia
— Izzi Smith (@izzionfire) July 8, 2020
So yea, Bing & Yandex and others have options:
Yandex also has one, even with an API: https://t.co/Y79k3LpmF5
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) July 7, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter.
