30 Mar 2012

How to Fix Google Rich Snippets Errors for WordPress

Posted in Blogging, WordPress By Amit Chahar On March 30, 2012

Recently, when I tested my website pages on Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool - I found the following three errors.

Warning: Missing required field “entry-title”.
Warning: Missing required field “updated”.
Warning: Missing required hCard “author”.

You may also find these errors, so here’s the fix for all these errors.

Fix “Entry-Title” Error

Go to Appearance> Theme Editor in your WordPress Dashboard.
Open Single Post(Single.php) file.
Hit Find(Ctrl+F) in your editor and look for the_title(). Your can see it’s surrounded by an H1 or H2 tag.

Replace it with this. Just add class=”title entry-title” in the H1 tag.

Fix “Updated” Error

This error occurs because Google rich snippet wants to know when was the post updated. So, search for class=”date” in the single.php file and replace it with class=”date updated”.
In my case, it is class=”post-date updated”.

Fix Missing Field hCard Author Error

This tells Google who is the author of the post. Search for the_author() in the same file, and just modify the code like this:

Add the span class “vcard author” and “fn” and don’t forget to close it with </span> tag.

Now check the page again in the Google Rich Snippet Testing Tool and all the errors are gone.

Note: Editing single.php applies for single post alone (Home page still remains the same with warnings). But I’ve also noticed that Google is showing author information even on pages with warnings.

The codes explained above may not work for everyone. So, you can ask any issue you’re facing in comments.

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Comments

comments

About Author

Amit Chahar

Pingback: A Complete Guide to Rich Snippets [ Infographic ] | Youngblah
www.rateretailer.com

Thanks man, You are the Best
- http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]
  
  You’re welcome.:)
http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

Can’t find any of this in my Genesis theme. Any other suggestions?
- http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]
  
  Which error it is showing? Also, in the recent update of “SEO Plugin By Yoast”, they have added an option to add Author metadata. You can even try that.
  - http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
    
    Amit — The author/publisher stuff is all fine (rel=auth implemented), but the errors I get are regarding the hcard…
    
    hentry
    Warning: At least one field must be set for HatomEntry.
    Warning: Missing required field “entry-title”.
    Warning: Missing required field “updated”.
    Warning: Missing required hCard “author”.
    hentry
    
    I don’t use Yoast or any SEO plugin since SEO is built-in with Genesis (and I’d prefer not to use these heavy plugins if I can avoid it).
    - http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]
      
      Just checked your blog on Google Rich snippets testing tool and Google search. Your Google+ profile link with your photo is already showing below your blog links in search results. So, there’s no need to fix the errors. But still if you want to do it, the fix is same for sure as explained above. But because genesis framework is different, you need to do the changes in functions.php maybe. I need to work on genesis framework and then will get back to you.
      - http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
        
        Okay, thanks. I knew my author info was showing up properly in search results, but since these errors came up I didn’t know if there was something else that could be appearing (or if Google preferred to see things in a different way). Just trying to take advantage if there’s anything else I should be doing!
      - http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]
        
        No. It is showing important things. Rest won’t make any difference.
http://techprevue.blogspot.com/ Vinay Prajapati

Nice tutorial
- http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]
  
  Thanks.
Pingback: Como resolver o problema dos Avisos: Missing required field Title Updated e hCard | Rentabilização: Dicas e Informações reais para Blogueiros
http://eyuva.com Vivek Sancheti

Can you say how to fix this error in genesis ?
- http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]
  
  Personally, I’ve not worked on Genesis Theme but I’m sure the process would be same. But you may find these classes and tags in other file than single.php. Just search all the files. And let me know.
  - http://eyuva.com Vivek Sancheti
    
    i couldnt find them out
Kristján Már

Hey man, thanks for a good article!

However, I’m having a similar issue as Vivek – I’m running a theme called optimizepress and these variables are not present in my single.php.

On the rich snippet tool all is working except I get the hcard error.

The preview on the snippet tools shows my g+ image but a normal search does not return it…

Should I just leave it as is, is the authorship link established even if the image is missing and I’m getting the hcard error?
- http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar
  
  No, image should show in the Google search results. Tell me your site URL, I’ll look into it.
Gilles

Hi,
Is there someone who can help me? For days I’m trying to connect my google+ page to my website and it won’t work. Each time I get the Warning: missing required hCard “author”. I already changed code in single.php but no result.
Is there anyone who can help me?
Thanks a lot!
- http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar
  
  Read this post – http://youngblah.com/how-to-show-author-information-in-google-search-results/ and tell me, have you set up Google authorship like this?
  - Gilles
    
    Hi Amit, thanks for the reply. All settings are as mentioned.
    
    What I’m trying to do is to get my company picture in the google search results and more information on the right hand side (like in the picture). So I thought that when I link my website to my google+ business page that would be OK?
    
    But on every tutorial I found that I have to link to my site in the section “contributor to” in my google+ page. But in my business page there is no section like that. This is the case in my personal google+ page. Maybe thats the reason of the problem? I’m trying already for days and no results :-s.
    - http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar
      
      Didn’t get much from the images as they are written in some other language. But what you need to do is verify your address, then only it will show in search results on the right hand side. Check out this post for reference – http://www.branded3.com/blogs/how-to-set-up-a-google-business-page-and-why-i-should-care/
      
      And regarding authorship, you can set up only in the Google+ profile.