Google said it again - structured data does not help your site rank any better. John Mueller of Google said this on Bluesky, "Structured data won't make your site rank better." He said, all it is "used for displaying the search features listed in" this search gallery document.
John went on to explain:
It's fine to use it for other things in schema.org, that won't cause problems, but you're unlikely to see any visible change from it in Google Search. (I know some people take the "unlikely" & "visible change" to mean they should optimize for it regardless - knock yourself out; others move faster)
So if someone tells you that you can expect your page's ranking to go up in Google Search after you add some schema markup or structured data, that is false. We covered this topic as recently as October 2023 and a few times, including structured data is not a ranking factor and said even if you get penalized for structured data misuse, it won't result in a ranking drop but rather the removal of rich results in search. Google did add that it can help them identify product review content.
Here are those posts:
(All of the following isn't new, hence the meme.) Structured data won't make your site rank better. It's used for displaying the search features listed in developers.google.com/search/docs/... . Use it if your pages map to & are appropriate for any of those features.
— John Mueller (@johnmu.com) April 13, 2025 at 2:00 AM
It's fine to use it for other things in schema.org, that won't cause problems, but you're unlikely to see any visible change from it in Google Search. (I know some people take the "unlikely" & "visible change" to mean they should optimize for it regardless - knock yourself out; others move faster)
— John Mueller (@johnmu.com) April 13, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Again, this is not new but it is a topic that comes up very often.
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
Update: A Follow up response:
I suspect you're trying to draw connections way past my post, but at the same time, if a page on a site doesn't provide enough textual context about Mercury "planet or element" then I don't think any amount of structured data will save it.
— John Mueller (@johnmu.com) April 20, 2025 at 2:59 PM
