Google announced it is removing the generic rich results filer in the search appearance section within Search Console‘s performance report. This means you will no longer be able to see in an aggregate how your rich results are performing.
Google said it is removing this filter because it has breakout filters and reports for most individual rich results, such as event rich results, how to rich results and many others, so this is not a real loss in reporting.
When it is being removed. Google said this filter is going away on August 1, 2021 both within the Google Search Console interface and API. Google said it is being removed because Google already reports in the individual rich results and Google said it realizes “that grouping data for rich results is not ideal, as each type may have a significantly different behavior. Therefore we decided to sunset the Rich result search appearance.”
What it looks like. After August 1st, you will no longer see a search appearance filter for “rich results” and be able to report on that generic type. Instead, you will only see specific rich result types that your site qualifies for under the search appearance filter.
No ranking changes. With this reporting change, Google made it clear that this does not impact your rankings or traffic. Google said “the removal of the search appearance does not affect your traffic in any way; it is only a reporting change.”
More to come. Google said it will keep adding more rich result types and reporting on those types in Search Console. Just because Google is removing the generic rich results filter, it does not mean that it will stop reporting on specific rich results. Google wrote “we’ll keep investing in adding more rich result types to Search Console, and hope the reports will continue being a source of insights for you.”
Why we care. Technically, you are losing a filter within Google Search Console’s performance report. But that filter, according to Google, was not super useful for you. Instead you should filter on the specific rich result types instead of just a generic rich result category.
About The Author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.