Can I add custom Schema properties to the JSON-LD?

The Social and Search Optimization metabox allows you to customize several Schema property values based on the Schema Type you choose, but if you need to include additional properties, you can use the shortcode to manage the value of each property individually. Remember to submit the webpage URL to the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to validate your customized Schema property values.

How can I add Schema Aggregate Rating values?

There are several ways to add aggregate rating markup to your content, but first, let’s talk about what an “aggregate rating” actually is. ;-) The Schema.org website defines the Schema aggregateRating property value as: The overall rating, based on a collection of reviews or ratings, of the item. Two things to keep in mind about this: An aggregate rating value is calculated from several customer ratings / reviews for the current webpage content (e-commerce product reviews, for example). Google prefers — and often double-checks — that Schema markup reflects the current content of the webpage. So, if you want to manually set aggregate rating and/or review values in your Schema markup, make sure these customer ratings and/or reviews also appear in your webpage content (ie. the ratings and reviews are visible). So what’s the best and easiest way? The very best (and easiest) way is to use a supported plugin that offers rating and review features, like the WPSSO Ratings and Reviews add-on. The WPSSO RAR add-on extends the WordPress comment system with optional rating and review features, and does not conflict with WooCommerce’s own product rating features. ;-) Note that if you’re using the WPSSO Core Pro plugin, ratings and reviews from WooCommerce, Yotpo Social Reviews for WooCommerce, and WP-PostRatings are also supported. Alternatively, if you’re using a non-supported plugin — that saves aggregate rating values in post meta — you can use a WPSSO Core custom filter to add the Schema aggregateRating markup. Note that if you’re using the WPSSO JSON Pro add-on, you can also hook the Schema aggregateRating property directly. Either filter will work fine — it just depends on your personal preference. ;-) If none of the above solutions work for you, the WPSSO Schema JSON-LD Markup add-on also offers a [schema] shortcode that you can use to customize the current webpage Schema properties. The schema shortcode documentation includes a practical example on how to add custom aggregate rating values to your content.

Why shouldn’t I upload small images to the Media library?

Once in a while a customer will ask me this question — believing they should upload the image size they require for their content to the WordPress Media Library. For example, if they require a 300x200px image for their content, then they upload a 300x200px image to the Media library. What they don’t realize is that WordPress isn’t meant to be used this way, and they’re actually breaking an essential WordPress feature by doing this — not to mention that WPSSO will probably reject the image for being too small for Facebook Open Graph meta tags and Google Schema markup requirements. :-) WordPress and several 3rd party plugins provide different image sizes based on the resolution of the viewing device (aka responsive images). For example, a 300x200px image in your content will look blurry on high resolution screens (almost all current mobile phones, tablets, and laptops) because the browser must “upscale” the image to 450x300px or 600x400px in order to fill a 300x200px space on these high resolution screens. WordPress includes additional image markup in the webpage to provide alternative sizes (300x200px, 450x300px, and 600x400px for example), which allows the browser to choose the appropriate image based on the screen resolution. If you upload a 300x200px image to the Media library, WordPress will not be able to offer these additional image sizes, and WPSSO will not be able to use this image for most social sites and search engines (which have minimum image size requirements). So, what should you do if you want a 300x200px image in your content? That’s what WordPress image sizes are for. ;-) In the WordPress Settings > Media page, you can define sizes for a variety of different image sizes, like thumbnail, medium, medium-large, large, etc. Your theme and other plugins may also define additional image sizes, and some plugins allow you to define custom sizes as well. When you need to add an image to your content, you select an image from the Media library and choose the image size you require. You should never use the full size image in your content. If you need a 300x200px image, for example, you should have defined a 300x200px image size in the WordPress settings (cropped or uncropped, depending on your requirements) and then select that image size. So, what image size should you upload to the Media library? That’s easy — the largest size you can. ;-) Currently, Facebook uses 600x315px images for shared links, which means providing Facebook with 1200x630px images for high resolution devices. So at a minimum, you should be uploading 1200px wide images, but hopefully even larger to future proof your images for evolving requirements — both Facebook and Google may require larger images in the near future. Because so many websites have used small images in the past, WPSSO provides 600x315px images to Facebook by default. If your images are large enough, you should change this to 1200x630px in the WordPress Settings > Social and Search Image Dimensions page. See the WPSSO Setup Guide for more information on image sizes. ;-)

How do I fix Google Structured Data > hatom errors?

If you’re seeing errors in the Google Search Console for Structured Data > hatom (markup: microformats.org) for missing “author / entry-title / updated” values – these errors are not from meta tags or Schema markup. There have been several markup formats supported by Google over the years, and your theme templates may include older (and incomplete) hatom / microformats markup. You should contact your theme author to have them fix or remove the incomplete hatom / microformats markup, or try and Remove / Fix ‘hentry’ Errors in your Theme Templates yourself, using a WordPress filter (provided your theme templates use standard WordPress filters).

Can I add custom Schema properties to the JSON-LD?

The Social and Search Optimization metabox allows you to customize several Schema property values based on the Schema Type you choose, but if you need to include additional properties, you can use the shortcode to manage the value of each property individually. Remember to submit the webpage URL to the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to validate your customized Schema property values.

NextGEN Facebook Replaced by WPSSO

The NextGEN Facebook plugin was forked in 2014 and replaced by the WPSSO Core plugin — they’re both Free and available on WordPress.org, have the same author and developer, the same solid core features and code-base, but WPSSO Core is distributed without the social sharing buttons and their related features. Social sharing buttons are distributed separately, as optional extensions for WPSSO Core. WPSSO Core also provides several other useful and optional extensions:

Until recently, NextGEN Facebook existed independently and in parallel to WPSSO Core, but in the last version of NextGEN Facebook (8.46.1), a notice has been added to the plugin’s description and in the WordPress admin interface (shown on the WordPress Dashboard and plugin settings pages after it has been active for 3 days). The description notice suggests using WPSSO Core instead, while the WordPress admin notice suggests uninstalling NextGEN Facebook and installing WPSSO Core instead (with an optional update button available within the notice). If you’re using the Free version of NextGEN Facebook, you should update to the WPSSO Core plugin as soon as possible.