A couple of weeks ago, Google created a proposal on the schema Github proposing expanding and enhancing shipping data in schema.org. One of the enhancements is a new schema type named ShippingService, that groups shipping constraints such as delivery locations, time, weight and size limits and shipping rate.
The proposal only has about 10 comments on it, and if you work in e-commerce and do SEO, you may want to review it and add your own comments. Here is the proposal:
This is a proposal from Google to support a richer representation of shipping details (such as delivery cost and speed) and make this kind of data explicit. If adopted by schema.org and publishers, we consider it likely that search experiences and other consuming systems could be improved by making use of such markup.This change introduces a new type, ShippingService, that groups shipping constraints (delivery locations, time, weight and size limits and shipping rate). Redundant fields from ShippingRateSettings are therefore been deprecated in this proposal.
As a consequence, the following changes are also proposed:
-some fields in OfferShippingDetails have moved to ShippingService;
- ShippingRateSettings has more ways to specify the shipping rate, proportional to the order price or shipping weight;
- linking from the Offer should now be done with standard Semantic Web URI linking.
Given the size of the proposal, an external Google Docs document is created for review and inline comments.
John Mueller wrote on LinkedIn:
If you have thoughts about richer representation of shipping details for ecommerce sites (not for boats (*)), there's a proposal on the schema Github & a chance for you to comment / ask questions.In general, poking around at the items brought up there (not the spam) might be interesting for those passionate about structured data. It's also nice to see some known folks active there!
Irina Tuduce from Google wrote, "To improve online shopping experiences, Google has submitted a proposal to schema.org for richer representation of shipping details. This includes making information like delivery cost and speed more readily available."
If adopted, this standardized approach could lead to users will have clearer insights into shipping options and search engines can leverage this data to show more relevant results, she added.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
