Are Your Rich Snippets Working? How to Check Your Structured Data for Free
Rich snippets can make your search results stand out, but the code behind them is invisible and easy to get wrong. Here is why it is worth checking, and a free tool to do it.
Search results have changed. Alongside the familiar blue title and short description, you will often see star ratings, prices, opening hours, event dates or a trail of breadcrumbs. Those extra details are called rich snippets, and they can make a result far more eye-catching and useful than the plain results around it.
But here is the catch: rich snippets are built from code that visitors never see. If that code has a mistake, nothing on your website looks wrong. You simply never get the result you hoped for. That is why we have built a free tool that does the checking for you: the Rich Snippet Checker.
What are rich snippets?
A rich snippet is an enhanced search result built from structured data, which is code added to a web page that describes its content in a form search engines can read easily. It uses a shared vocabulary called schema.org, and is usually written as JSON-LD. Instead of leaving a search engine to guess, the code says plainly: this page is a product, it costs this much, it is in stock, and customers have rated it this highly.
Depending on the type of page, the extra detail can include prices and availability, star ratings, event dates and locations, recipe times, job details and breadcrumbs. Search engines decide when to show them, and not every type of markup produces a visible result. Valid markup makes your page eligible for a rich result. It never guarantees one.
Why they matter more than ever
A result with extra detail stands out, and it tells people something useful before they click. That is good for visitors and good for you, because the people who do click already know a little about what they will find.
There is also a newer reason. AI assistants and AI-powered search tools increasingly summarise the web and recommend businesses, and they rely on clear, reliable, machine-readable information to do it. Structured data is one of the most direct ways of telling them who you are, what you offer and where you work. Businesses that describe themselves clearly are easier for AI to understand, and easier to trust.
The problem: mistakes are invisible
Because structured data sits behind the scenes, errors can go unnoticed for months. The ones we see most often are:
- Broken code. A single missing or extra comma can make a whole block of JSON unreadable, so search engines ignore it.
- The wrong format. A price written as "£149" instead of "149.00", or a date written as "2 November 2026" instead of "2026-11-02".
- Missing properties. A product with no price, or a business with no address, will not qualify for a rich result.
- Conflicts. Two plugins each adding their own markup to the same page, saying slightly different things.
- Out-of-date data. A redesign, a migration or a plugin update quietly removes or changes the markup, and nobody notices.
Check any page for free
The Rich Snippet Checker takes the address of any public web page and does the work in a few seconds. It finds the structured data on the page, whether it is JSON-LD, Microdata or RDFa, and shows it in plain English. For each item it tells you whether it looks valid, valid with warnings or has errors, and explains exactly what is wrong and where.
It checks the properties Google documents for common types such as products, reviews, articles, events, recipes, local businesses and breadcrumbs. It also checks that dates, prices, ratings and web addresses are in the right format, and it lets you know where Google is unlikely to show a result at all. You can open the data it found, and every result links to Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator for a second opinion.
It is a guide based on what Google documents, not Google's own verdict, and it reads the page as it is delivered, so markup added by JavaScript after the page loads is not seen. For most websites it is a quick, useful way to find the problems that matter.
We tried it on our own website first
Before launching the checker we ran it on our own pages, and it found something. Our customer reviews carried a rating but no dates, which the tool flagged as a missing recommended property. It also pointed out something worth knowing: Google does not show star ratings for reviews of a business that are published on that business's own website, so those reviews will not earn stars in search results. We added the dates, and the markup still helps search and AI tools understand who said what about us. If a tool built by a web design company finds something to tidy on its own website, it is worth checking yours.
What to do with the results
Fix errors first, then add the recommended properties that make sense for your business. If your website runs on WordPress, an SEO plugin may already produce most of this markup, so a setting or an empty field may be all that is needed. After a change, check the page again, then allow time for search engines to re-read it. Our help guide to rich snippets explains each step in more detail.
Want a hand?
If the Rich Snippet Checker shows problems you would rather not fix yourself, or finds no structured data at all, we can help. Structured data is part of our SEO services, and we can also look at how ready your whole website is for AI search with a free AI review. Contact us and we will be happy to talk it through.
