Any Evidence Structured Data Schema Makes A Difference?

[consultant]

It's widely accepted that it's good to include structured data on your pages (Organization and LocalBusiness schema type.) I'm not arguing against doing that but does anyone have any concrete evidence it's a significant signal for Google's Local Search algorithm?

Reason I ask is I searched for some organization and local business records of websites I know have had the markup for some time and none of them are returned via the Google KnowledgeGraph search API.

Google APIs Explorer

How could Google factor in something it isn't apparently storing?

 

[Phil Rozek]

None that I've seen.

This post from @Andrew Shotland is accurate, I'd say: https://www.localseoguide.com/structured-data-can-mehseo/

 

[consultant]

The example in that article of Google showing "Rich Results" is for a person type, not an Organization or a LocalBusiness type. I think the statement though about "future proofing" though is spot-on, meaning they might not be using it now, but they may later.

For local businesses, I've only seen Google display their GMB info instead of the LocalBusiness Knowledge Graph Rich Results. So really there's still no concrete evidence (at least that I've seen) so far that indicates Google is storing and using Organization and LocalBusiness schema data, unless their Knowledge Graph Search API isn't searching all Knowledge Graph data they have stored.

I DO see apparently RIch Results for like Pepsico. I tried to think of a famous non-National company and for some reason, Oprah Windfrey's favorite fried chicken place, Ezell's, came to mind as I think that's a Seattle business. And Rich Results for that business came up. For Pepsi it displays "Food Company" and Ezells "Fast Food Company" but a search of either website turns up no schema markup indicating Google is getting its Rich Results from a source other than the company's website.

So the question remains, is Google even storing the structured data from websites with types Organization or LocalBusiness?? Don't seen any evidence they are.

 

[Tiggerito]

Structured Data on sites and the knowledge graph are not very connected at the moment, so I would not be surprised if the API does not show any entities from Structured Data.

Off the top of my head. You can mark up sameAs for some social pages in an Organisation and that can be embedded in the knowledge panel.

The local business listing in the knowledge panel is also not part of the knowledge graph. It's a custom panel generated by GMB itself. And the above social markup does not apply to them. I think Google currently recommends marking up Local Business opening hours, which implies that info may flow across to the GMB panels. But then why not directly add it to the listing.