This presentation prepared by Aaditya Shah from SMG Convonix gives an in-depth analysis of Google Data Highlighter – a point & click tool which can help sites with structured content to allow users to find their content in enhanced search results.

1. Google
Data Highlighter
- By Aaditya Shah

2. Why Rich Snippets?
• Rich Snippets improve the web search results & ultimately give the users information
in a structured pattern
• While there is no way we can be sure that big G will always shows our information in
snippets, one thing we can be sure of is Google definitely checks the site for marked-
up content while crawling
• In order to be eligible for rich snippets, you should mark up your site’s pages using
one of three supported formats:
1. MicroData
2. MicroFormats
3. RDFa

3. Why Google Introduced Data Highlighter &
Structured Markup Helper?
• Data Highlighter is a point-and-click tool that can be used by anyone
authorized for your site in Google Webmaster Tools
• No changes to HTML code are required. Instead, you just use your mouse to
highlight and "tag" each key piece of data on a typical event page of your
website
• Easier & efficient way for site webmasters to structure the content on the
site especially for those who are not comfortable with HTML format
• Structured Markup Helper facilitates direct changes to the HTML code using
highlighting of data on the site

4. Pre-requisite for Using Google Data Highlighter
• Check sitemap.xml & robots.txt are updated & have no errors before using
the Data Highlighter
• Ensure your site has been verified by Google Webmaster

5. SUPPORTED DATA TYPES
• Articles
• Events
• Products
• Local Businesses
• Movies
• Restaurants
• Software Applications
• TV Episodes

6. SITES USING ARTICLE TAGS
• Techcrunch
• Techbase
• Cnet
• SearchEngineWatch

7. ARTICLES
Tags
•Title
•Author
•Date Published
•Image
•Category
•Average Rating

8. SITES USING EVENT TAGS
• timeoutmumbai.net
• eventsofmumbai.com
• asklaila.com
• burrp.com
• timescity.com
• meetup.com

9. EVENTS
Tags
•Name
•Date
•Location
 Venue
 Address
•Image
•Official URL
•Category
•Performer
•Ticket
 Type
 Price

10. SITES USING BUSINESS TAGS
• justdial.com
• www.indiamart.com
• biz.yelp.com

11. LOCAL BUSINESSES
Tags
•Name
•Address
•Telephone
•Opening Hours
•Category
•Image
•URL
•Average Rating
 Rating
 Votes
•Review
 Reviewer
 Review Text
 Review Rating
 Review Date

12. SITES USING MOVIE TAGS
• imdb.com
• ndtv.com
• youtube.com
• rediff.com/movies

13. MOVIESTags
•Name
•Image
•Director
•Screenplay By
•Actor
•Date Released
•Genre
•Rating
•Duration
•Official URL
•Average Rating
 Rating Value & Best Rating
 Votes
Review
 Reviewer
 Review Text
 Review Rating
 Review Date

14. SITES USING RESTAURANT TAGS
• burrp.com
• zomato.com
• yelp.com

15. RESTAURANTSTags
•Name
•Address
•Telephone
•Opening Hours
•Cuisine
•Image
•URL
•Reservation URL
•Menu URL
•Average Rating
 Rating
 Votes
•Review
 Reviewer
 Review Text
 Review Rating
 Review Date

16. SITES USING SOFTWARE APPLICATION TAGS
• cnet.com
• downloads.zdnet.com
• www.warriorforum.com

17. SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS
• Name
• Image
• Category
• Publisher
• Official URL
• Download URL
• Operating System
• Date Published
• Software Version
• Average Rating
 Rating
 Votes
• Review
 Reviewer
 Review Text
 Review Rating
 Review Date

18. SITES USING EPISODE TAGS
• www.sho.com/
• www.tv.com/shows/episodes/
• www.youtube.com
• www.mtv.com/

19. EPISODES
Tags
•Series Name
•Episode Name
•Season Number
•Episode Number
•Image
•Director
•Actor
•Air Date
•Official URL
•Average Rating

20. 1. Log in to your webmaster tools account
2. Click the optimization menu on the left side navigation
3. Select "Data Highlighter"
4. Click the blue button – “Start Highlighting“
5. Following this step you have two options – one which allows you to tag that
particular page along with a set of other similar pages or just that particular page
6. The next step is to enter the URL – first page of the set or just that page
7. Highlight one type of structured data at a time (name, date, location, etc.) using
your mouse
8. Right click the highlighted information and select the type of data that is
highlighted
9. Highlight all of the pertinent data on the page and watch it appear in the right
hand column.
10. click the red “Next” button on the top right of the screen.
11. View your final information and if correct, click the red “Publish” button on the
top right of the screen.
HOW DO YOU USE DATA HIGHLIGHTER

21. DEMO

22. SINGLE PAGE SET
• When you want to highlight different type of pages on a particular site, we highlight these pages in
different sets where each page is a single page set
• Single page set will handle events or products from one web page

23. MULTIPLE PAGE SET
• When you want to highlight a group of similar pages on your site, we can use a multiple page set
• A multiple page set can handle up to 500,000 web pages of events and products

24. URL PATTERN & WILD CARD
Consider a page set to be created for a site www.abc.com
Wild Card in Google Data Highlighter is similar to Regex in Google Analytics
Consider the categories www.abc.com/food/pizza/123.html
/food/sushi/456.html
/food/burger/123.html
Using a wild card we can create page set covering all the subcategories-
www.abc.com/food/pizza/*
/food/*/*
/*/*/*

25. ERRORS ENCOUNTERED WHILE
CREATING A PAGE SET
Error: URL Pattern doesn’t include start page
Solution:
If you specified the following URL as the starting page:
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/123.html
and you specify the following for a URL pattern:
http://www.abc.com/food/*
the "Pattern does not include start page" message will display because the pattern
you specified excludes the /pizza/subpath. While the specified pattern includes
pages such as
http://www.abc.com/food/891.html and
http://www.abc.com/food/125.html,
it excludes pages such as
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/123.html.
To highlight URLs containing the /pizza/ subpath, use a pattern such as
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/* or
http://www.abc.com/food/*/*

26. ERRORS ENCOUNTERED WHILE
CREATING A PAGE SET
Error: URL Pattern includes too many pages. The URL pattern you specified
includes more than 500,000 pages.
Solution:
if your site contained information about food under
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/...
and
http://www.abc.com/food/sushi/...
Instead of specifying a URL pattern of http://www.abc.com/food/*/*, you could
create two page sets with a smaller scope, such as
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/*
and
http://www.abc.com/food/sushi/*

27. ERRORS ENCOUNTERED WHILE
CREATING A PAGE SET
Error: URL Pattern includes pages that you don’t manage
Solution:
The URL pattern you specified includes pages that are not part of the verified site
on Webmaster Tools. For example, if
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/*
is registered as a verified site on Webmaster Tools, a URL pattern of
http://www.abc.com/food/*/*
will also include
http://www.abc.com/food/sushi/*
which is not registered as part of a verified site.
Specify a narrower URL pattern, such as http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/*

28. ERRORS ENCOUNTERED WHILE
CREATING A PAGE SET
Error: Pattern does not match any pages
Solution:
Data Highlighter didn't find any pages that match the pattern you specified.
Check for typos and make sure you've entered the correct URL. If you still see this
message after checking for typos, try to expand the scope of the URL pattern.
For example, change
http://www.abc.com/food/pizza/*
to
http://www.example.com/food/*/*

29. DELETING A PAGE SET
If you no longer want Data Highlighter to extract data for your pages, or if your site has
changed significantly and you need to redo the tagging, delete the page set.
However once you delete a page set, you cannot recover it.
1. View the page set's Publish page:
• On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site.
• On the Dashboard, click Search Appearance.
• Click Data Highlighter.
• Click the name of a page set.
2. Click the trash button

30. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DATA HIGHLIGHTER AND
STRUCTURED DATA MARKUP HELPER
• Data Highlighter points and clicks on a sample web page to indicate its key data fields.
• Structured Data Markup Helper shows exactly what micro-data annotations to add to the
page’s HTML code
• Structured Data Markup Helper shows you how to update your site so that Google can
understand the data it contains
• Once Google understands the data on your site, your data can be presented more
attractively and in new ways
• Markup Helper can also show you how to change your email templates so Gmail can present
the data in your email in new and useful ways

31. • According to Google, it takes between 5 and 10
manually tagged pages with the data highlighter for
their algorithms to understand the patterns on your
website
• It also may take some time for these results to
appear in Google’s search engine results pages
• If you have used the tool properly, and considerable
time has passed with no results, your website may
be facing other SEO issues that need to be
addressed first
• However there is no surety that big G will show your
structured data in snippets 
EVEN AFTER USING HIGHLIGHTER WHY DOES
MY DATA NOT SHOW UP IN SERPs?

32. CASE STUDIES

33. What’s the challenge?
• While developing the html code for rich snippets or
even data highlighting on the site, the biggest
challenge on such e-commerce portals is the vast
number of pages, their different data structures & the
complexity of the internal linking of these pages
• This makes it difficult for Google to select all the
similar pages of the site to ensure data is highlighted
for all the relevant pages in a multiple page set

34. Categories
Sub-Categories
The sub-categories for
Clothing, Footwear,
Watches & Bags,
Wallets & Belts are
structured in a similar
way. Thus these
categories can be
highlighted using the
same page set.
Similarly the sub-
categories for Mobiles
& Tablets, Laptops &
Accessories, Cameras
& Audio Players &
Speakers are
structured in the same
format.
The structure of the pages on Flipkart is quite similar. This makes it easier for the
blog webmaster to highlight multiple pages in the same set
Content
Structuring

35. CHALLENGE IN URL PATTERN
Clothing
Footwear
Watches
Bags, Wallets & Belts
www.flipkart.com/*/*/*/*
URL Pattern for Clothing
URL Pattern for Footwear
URL Pattern for
Watches
URL Pattern for Bags,
Wallets & Belts
www.flipkart.com/mens-clothing/*/*/
www.flipkart.ccom/mens-footwear/*/*/*/
www.flipkart.com/watches/*/*/*
www.flipkart.com/mens-clothing/*/*/
www.flipkart.ccom/mens-footwear/*/*/*/

36. Categories
Sub-Categories
The categories as well
the sub-categories are
structured in a
different style. For
example – Fashion &
Motors have content
structured in a
different style. But
also Cars & Trucks &
Motorcycles in Motors
have different content
structures.
Content Structure needs to be modified for enabling similar page classification or
data highlighting can be done for a selected important pages on the site.
Content
Structuring

37. Categories
Sub-Categories
Content
Structuring
The structure of the pages on Naaptol is also similar. This makes it easier for the
blog webmaster to highlight multiple pages in the same set
All categories & sub-
categories are
structured in a similar
way. Thus these
categories can be
highlighted using the
same page set.

38. BEST PRACTICES
• While tagging - start at the top of the page and work
your way down towards the bottom.
• After you tag enough data, Data Highlighter will guess
and automatically tag the rest of the page
• Tag the pages consistently when possible. For
example, if your pages display event locations at both
the top and bottom of each page, always tag the
address at the top.
• If pages are missing data, you can supply defaults for
the missing data by clicking Add missing values from
the gear menu.
• The defaults will be used for all pages in the page set,
so make sure that the data applies to all pages in the
page set.

39. • If you tag an event name that also happens to be a hypertext link, Data Highlighter
automatically uses the link's URL for the event. For example, if you tag an event
name as:
<a href="http://example.com/eventName">My Event Name</a>, then Data Highlighter
uses "http://example.com/eventName" as the event URL
• Data Highlighter automatically uses the URL only if the URL points to a page in your
page set
• The URL will not display in the My Data Items column. You can confirm that the URL
was added by viewing the structured data page
• If you explicitly tag a different URL for the event, Data Highlighter will use the URL
that you tag.
BEST PRACTICES

40. SOME IMPORTANT POINTS
• If you've already gone through a few rounds of tagging and Data Highlighter still doesn't
understand your site, try starting over and creating a page set with just one page.
• If that succeeds, create a single-page page set for each important page on your site. If
this doesn't succeed, you'll need to use HTML markup instead of Data Highlighter.
• You can use the Structured Data Markup helper to embed structured data right onto
webpages, as the tool provides micro-data annotations you copy into the page’s HTML.
• You can then use this information to tag similar pages on your site.

41. THANK YOU