How to Easily Debug Markup Implementation Errors

Debugging can sometimes be a tricky affair but it has now been made easier. The Structured Data Dashboard from Google Webmaster now has a new feature that helps to make debugging easier and helps users learn how Google sees marked-up data on a website.

In the feature an ‘item’ stands for a top level structured data element (excluding nested items) that is tagged in the HTML code. They are arranged according to data type and the order is by number of errors. There is also a scale for the errors themselves.

This will make it easier to make comparisons between errors and items. Any changes you make on the website can easily be traced back to the change in markup errors (whether they are appearing or disappearing).

The process

•    Click on the specific content type and you will be able to view the errors. The results can be filtered or viewed in one go.

•    You will then check whether the markup meets the implementation guidelines for each content type.

•    Click the URLs on the table provided and you should be able to see specific details of the detected markup the last time the page was crawled and the missing pieces.

•    Fixing the issues is now easy and a test can be done in the Structured Data Testing Tool. The pages are crawled again and reprocessed and the changes are ready to be reflected in the Structured Data Dashboard after implementation.

Structured Data Testing Tool

More error types will be added over time so as to improve debugging. Questions are inevitable with any new feature so for this case you can go to the forums on Webmaster to attain more knowledge on the details of this feature. You can also relate your experience to them and listen for feedback.