Google Updates Structured Data Guidance To Clarify Supported Formats via @sejournal, @martinibuster
Google updated the structured data guidance to better emphasize that all three structured data formats are acceptable to Google and also explain why JSON-LD is is recommended.
The updated Search Central page that was updated is the Supported Formats section of the Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search webpage.
The most important changes were to add a new section title (Supported Formats), and to expand that section with an explanation of supported structured data formats.
Three Structured Data Formats
Google supports three structured data formats.
- JSON-LD
- Microdata
- RDFa
But only one of the above formats, JSON-LD, is recommended.
According to the documentation, the other two formats (Microdata and RDFa) are still fine to use. The update to the documentation explains why JSON-LD is recommended.