NOTICE!!! A small bug in the plugin has now been fixed and a new version was uploaded to WordPress. If you previously installed the plugin, please check your plugin dashboard for an update notice.
We’re pleased to announce the availability of our FREE WordPress In-Depth Article markup plugin!
Our In-Depth Articles Generator plugin, once installed in your WordPress blog or site, will automate the schema markup of any of your posts or pages with the Schema.org Article markup properties recommended by Google to qualify your content for its new In-Depth Article search results feature.
What Are Google In-Depth Articles?
For an “in-depth” description, see my post “Google In-Depth Articles.”
Google is now showing a special search result for selected topical searches that displays articles on that topic that go deeper than usual into the subject, and which appear on the sites of trusted publishers and are written by authoritative authors. A typical In-Depth Article result looks like this:
The results are usually displayed at the bottom of the first search results page, although there have been reports that it might sometimes show in the middle of the page.
How Does Content Qualify to Be an In-Depth Article?
According to Google, the best way to help them identify your content as a possible candidate for showing in an In-Depth Article box is to do any or all of the following:
- Use schema.org article markup to identify the headline, altHeadline, main image, description, publication date, and article body of your in-depth content.
- Use Authorship markup on the content.
- For multi-page or multi-part articles, use proper rel=next, rel=prev and rel=canonical tags
- Clearly identify your brand logo (either by linking to your Google+ Page or using organization markup).
Our new plugin is designed to help you with the first (schema article markup) qualification, which is the most difficult one. Typically, using such markup involves inserting code into the header and body of your posts. Our plugin makes coding unnecessary.
Using the In-Depth Articles Generator Plugin
1. Once the plugin is installed, your posts will have the necessary rel=”article” for the Google In-Depth Articles feature placed automatically. In most cases, there’s nothing else for you to do!
2. The plugin includes a dialog box which appears below the editing window in the WordPress post editor. This box allows you to customize three of the article schema markup properties:
Options:
- Headline: Will use the text in your title tag if left empty.
- Alternative Headline: Left blank if you put nothing here. Schema.org describes this attribute as “a secondary title for the creative work”
- Description: A short description of your article that search engines may display in their search results. If left blank, your meta tag description will be used (if you’ve specified one).
That’s it! Download the Virante In Depth Articles Generator plugin.
I’ve just installed it. Thanks Virante!
Awesome, thank you!
Can’t wait to download and install this (waiting for the new version). It is time consuming to do all the schema.org mark-ups. Great time saver! Will recommend to people for sure.
I’m getting this Mark…thanks a lot!
Thanks for this, Mark. However, I have a question/issue… I download the plugin from the link in the “NOTICE” at the top of the page, and installed it. Now I’m also using WordPress SEO by Yoast. The Virante plugin is only adding a headline, alternative headline or description to my posts if I insert those into the “Virante In-Depth Article Options.” If I leave those blank in the Virante plug-in section, they are blank in the code. I took it from what you wrote above that if I left the headline blank the Virante plug-in would use the text in my title tag (which it’s not doing), and that if I left the description blank it would use my meta tag description if I’ve specified one (it doesn’t).
Anyone successfully using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast and this plugin? I have the same issue as Jim. It just leaves the headline, alternative headline, and description blank unless I have a default one in the settings which is pointless.
Am i right in saying that this plugin is then adding the mark-up to every single post? Rather than just the ones you want to specify as in-depth? Isn’t that going to be a bit annoying to search engines?
Please advise, cheers!
I’m encountering a slight problem with the plugin. It removes all the elements placed on my blog’s sidebar when activated (on all the pages, except the homepage) 🙁
Same thing happened to me, @jasonacidre– caused me to have to uninstall the plugin.
Same for me Jason/Jim. Any word on a fix for this?
I had the same issue as Jason, I have not had time to dig into the code, but I suspect its placing content outside the loop. This will likely break a lot of wordpress themes and its something that may need revision.
Hi!
I’m using the Thesis theme, and it unfortunately doesn’t add any markup 🙁
I know Thesis doesn’t always play well with other plugins, so I was wondering if this was the case with this plugin too. I think it might be necessary to create a custom box (for Thesis), but if anyone had any experience with this then it might help me create it. What are the prereqs for this to work?
Many Thanks
Seems like an awesome plugin but it removes sidebar elements on one of the sites I used it on. Maybe a conflict with another plugin or maybe it’s this plugin, I don’t know… 🙁
Hi
I have just installed and had the right side bar elements removed. Shame as it looks like the only plugin addressing this at the moment.
I am also keen to understand if it impacts Yoast DEO.
Simon
Hi there,
Great plugin yet it seems to be missing a closing tag somewhere which prevents some sidebars loading correctly. Also found that the link to plugin site points to http://orionorigin.coom/ typo in there me thinks 🙂
Is there support for video markup as well?
Can not wait to have a go at this. Thanks!
Hi there,
just downloaded, thanks a lot 🙂
Not clear about one thing… Why would I want to complete the fields in the dialog box? If I understand things correctly, all my articles have now been edited to include all the mystery strings for the article markup thingy (which I don’t even try to understand), so why would I want to write something that would be common to ALL articles?
In other words, should I write something generic that my be applicable to all articles or what?
Am I making sense? 😀
TIA
Is there anyway I stop the plugin generating Schema for certain pages? For example I have pages on my website that are NOT articles, but the plugin is creating schema for these pages.
Thanks!
Amy
I love the idea here, but the plugin creates invalid HTML5 code. Once it’s corrected, I’m going to be a huge fan.