Google’s new markup, which lets site owners customize how their search snippets are displayed, will start being used this week.
Google made the following announcement today on Twitter:
Beginning in a few days, Google Search will start using new preview markup in search results. It will be fully live worldwide by next week. Learn more about the new markup here: https://t.co/hmjhcvguJF
— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) October 16, 2019
The new markup was introduced last month and gives site owners greater control over how their content is previewed in Google search snippets.
Using the new markup, site owners can customize various search snippet attributes. Attributes could include the maximum length of a snippet, the length of video previews, and the size of thumbnail images.
The new markup can also be used to restrict entire sections of text from appearing in a snippet, for those who don’t want to give away too much information in the SERPs.
Learn more about the markup in our coverage here.
Google also gave SEOs a heads-up about the change via its @SearchLiaison account on Twitter:
Beginning in a few days, you may see changes to how some content is previewed in Google Search globally. Sites can now choose the length of their text snippets, video previews and the size of thumbnail images…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 16, 2019
SEOs and site owners who have already gone ahead and implemented the markup will start to see the changes reflected in search results in a little over a week.
Those who have not yet implemented the markup can, of course, do so at any time. The changes will be reflected the next time Google crawls your website.
Lastly, it’s worth stating this update is not designed to affect the search rankings of sites that utilize the new markup. The new markup will only affect how snippets from the site are displayed in search results.