Google is adding support for a new type of schema markup with the introduction of rich results for educational sites.

Websites that provide content such as practice problems and math solving pages may use structured data to become eligible for the New Rich Results.

Google says practice issues and math assistance are the types of content most requested by students since school was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To make it easier for learners to find what they’re looking for, Google is rolling out new search capabilities for these two popular types of content.

The new features create opportunities for sites that offer this material to increase their visibility on Google and potentially generate more traffic.

Learn more about Google’s new Rich Results and how educational sites can qualify.

Practice problem-rich results

Practice problems help students assess their understanding of a topic.

When searching for practice problems, Google now displays a selection of multiple choice questions in the search results.

Sites may be eligible to appear in these rich results by implementing the new structured data for practice issues.

Google asks sites to mark at least two practice issues per concept. For example, two practice problems for the concept “quadratic equation”.

Sites are encouraged to add any recommended structured data properties so that researchers can determine the relevance of the content to their level of education.

“User relevance, including timeliness, grade level, and program standards, can be key considerations for users when deciding what learning materials to use. In our studies, we’ve heard that users look for these signals to determine if online learning content matches what they’re learning in school. “

At launch, Google says researchers will be able to explore nearly a million practice issues from educational providers such as BBC Bitesize, Byjus, Careers360, Chegg, CK12, Education Quizzes, GradeUp, Great Minds, Kahoot !, OpenStax, Toppr, Vedantu and more.

Math Solvers Rich Results

Google defines a math solve page as a page that provides a tool to help users enter equations and get a solution.

The rich math solver results allow users to enter equations into the Google search bar to find websites that have step-by-step answers.

Educational sites can use the new structured math solver data to become eligible for rich results like the one pictured above.

New reports in Search Console

After implementing the required practice problem and math solver markup, site owners can use new reports in Google Search Console to check for errors.

Search Console’s rich results reports show all errors, warnings, and valid items for web pages that contain structured data.

Reports can be used to figure out what Google can and cannot read from the markup.

Site owners can resolve Rich Results errors and, when the errors are corrected, use the report to validate the changes.

This will trigger a process where Google will re-crawl the affected pages to verify if the markup is now valid.

Sources: Google search center blog