Fix Structured Data hAtom Feed Errors in Blogger

Last night one of my readers asked me how to fix structured data errors in blogger. As i indeed fixed this error right now so i think this is better time to tell users how exactly fix this error in every custom and official blogger template. This is not any complex work but just adding two important tags can fix this error in any blogger template. Once you have verified authorship markup with Google rich snippets tool then this tutorial would be great helpful to you. Structured data is newly released program by Google when the search engine giant can show more detailed information of web pages in results pages to improve higher order user interfaces to web search.

Today you'd learn how to fix this error in blogger custom and official template.

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

What is Schema.Org

Schema.org is simply a collaboration by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! to improve the web search results by creating a structured data markup supported by major search engines. On-page Schema markup helps search engines to understand information on different webpages and display more improved results on Search Pages. 

Webmasters who are using rich snippets like microformats, microdata or RDFa, then they're almost familiar with this process. Schema markup works for different types of content to deliver more richer results than ordinary, specially for product reviews, videos, authorship etc markups.

What is Rich Snippets

Google introduced rich snippets in the year 2009 when they decided to reshape the web search results more dynamically apart of ordinary SERPs like other normal search engines. That's why they invented structured data markup to help website owners verifying pages having different content with schema markup. By the way Google understands the content on your pages and show more detailed information intended to help users with specific queries.

With rich snippets verifier webmasters can show content like products reviews, ratings with stars, videos, authorship, and much more information of web pages. Check out some examples of Google Rich Snippets

Rich Snippets for Author

Rich Snippets for Product Reviews 

Rich Snippets for Video

Fixing Missing hAtoms in Blogger

For wordpress sites they have rich snippet plugin easily installable and verifiable authorship and other markups. Luckily for blogger we have found some coding to detect and fix errors for custom and official blogger templates. As Rich snippets work to show content author, entry-title, entry-conten, updated timestamp etc. microdatas so we will fix errors for these hatom feed.

Fixing hAtom Feeds for Homepage and Static Page

  1. Go to Blogger > Template section
  2. Backup Your Template
  3. Now click on Edit HTML
Now search for following code that works to show post author and post timestamp

<span class='post-author'>
       
       <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
          <data:top.authorLabel/>
          <data:post.author/>
        </b:if>   on
        <b:if cond='data:top.showTimestamp'>
        <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
          <data:post.timestamp/>
        </b:if>
        </b:if>

</span>

N.B. You should see following code right before/after <data:post.body/> of custom blogger template

The above Yellow highlighted code works to show post author name for every post on blogger and Orange highlighted code for post timestamp

We will simply change the format like

<span class='post-author'>

       <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>

<span class="vcard author post-author">
<span class="fn">

          <data:top.authorLabel/>
         <a href="https://plus.google.com/106741792188008796695"> <data:post.author/></a>

         </span></span>

        </b:if>   on
        <b:if cond='data:top.showTimestamp'>
        <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
          <span class='updated'><data:post.timestamp/></span>
        </b:if>
        </b:if>

</span>

Make following change:

Change Google plus profile ID by 106741792188008796695 with yours

N.B. If you use Google plus custom URL then you could not get this 21 digits of profile ID. So you have another solution of getting Google plus profile ID

1. Go to Google badge maker developers page
2. Choose your name to build widget
3. Copy code and paste on a notepad
4. Now you will see the 21 digits of your plus profile 
5. Finally use it

5. Finally save your template you're almost done!

Check hAtom Feeds in Google Rich Snippets Tool

   1. Visit the Rich Snippets testing tool, insert your URL and you will find the fixations of all errors in blogger custom template

hAtom feed for Homepage in Blogger

hAtom feed for Static Page in Blogger

Other Additional Fixing hAtoms

Although major fixings are made but due to bad template constructure still you may get errors for entry title. To fix this error please do following

As you're still on Edit Template section so search for

    <b:if cond='data:post.title'>
      <h3 class='post-title'>

Note: <h3 can be <h2 even <h1

Now replace the above code with following

    <b:if cond='data:post.title'>
      <h3 class='post-title entry-title'>

Save your template and you're all done!

Items with errors

Now Google will start updating your Structured Data and will show zero tolerance for items with errors. The number exactly shows the post count of errors of your site. Since you have cleaned up the schema markup errors for hatom feed inside your template, therefore within next 24 hours or more Google will start showing a green signal for your structured data!

Need Help?

I think the tutorial could help you to fix a big problem for blogger templates of hAtom fixation with rich snipppets tool and it's gravity of biggest importance for your site's appearance on search results pages with more richer content. If you find still trouble of verifying authorship markups, timestamp and author fn then feel free to ask me, i will help if you encounter problem.

Get pleasure in blogging...,

Disclaimer

This solution is introduced by TWB blog. Replication of this tutorial in any way without attribution would be a serious Copyright infringement.