Rant = schema.org documentation required fields

HTML & CSS
1

Just a little rant …

When implementing schema.org schema’s for our client websites, I already found the documentation very “”“limited”“”
But with some common sense it was not that hard to get it implemented properly.
Well I thought it was properly as back then the Google Structured Data testing Tool showed the schema’s properly without any errors.

Now that I’m building my portfolio, and want to showcase some of my semantic work, I see that the Structured data testing tool shows new errors.
All these errors are related to required fields, and nowhere you can find any info which fields are required on the schema.org site.

example:

Errors I get now …
description : A value for the description field is required.
description : The description field is recommended. Please provide a value if available. (what is it now, required or recommended ? )
uploadDate : A value for the uploadDate field is required.
thumbnailUrl: A value for the thumbnailUrl field is required.
image: A value for the image field is required.

and these vague recommendations … really ?
dateCreated : The dateCreated field is recommended. Please provide a value if available.
director: The director field is recommended. Please provide a value if available.
releasedEvent: The releasedEvent field is recommended. Please provide a value if available.
sameAs: The sameAs field is recommended. Please provide a value if available.

2

I know exactly what you mean. I have come across similar problems.

The thing to bear in mind is that Google’s testing and “errors” does not necessarily mean your markup is wrong according to schema syntax, but does not fulfil Google’s own recommended requirements for “Rich Search Results” or whatever they are called. So these are Google’s rules, not schema’s.
A lot of the so called errors and requirements I don’t agree with. I think it just means you won’t get the rich card/snippet thingy in SERPs.

3

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