Google updates structured data for forum and Q&A content

Google expanded its structured data support for forum and Q&A pages, adding properties that help you signal reply threads, quoted content, and whether content is human- or machine-generated. The update aims to reduce how Google misreads discussion and Q&A content.

What changed. Google’s QAPage docs now support commentCount and digitalSourceType. DiscussionForumPosting docs now support sharedContent plus the same commentCount and digitalSourceType.

The details. In Q&A markup, you can use commentCount on questions, answers, and comments to show total comments even if not fully marked up. answerCount + commentCount should equal total replies of any type.

How it works. digitalSourceType lets you flag whether content comes from a trained model or simpler automation. Use TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource for LLM-style output and AlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource for simpler bots. If omitted, Google assumes human-generated content.

What’s new for forums. sharedContent lets you mark the primary item shared in a post. Google accepts WebPage, ImageObject, VideoObject, and referenced DiscussionForumPosting or Comment, including quotes or reposts.

Why we care. This gives you more precise control over how Google reads modern community content — especially forum-heavy sites, support communities, UGC platforms, and Q&A sections. Google can better distinguish answers from comments, count partial threads across pagination, and identify when a post mainly shares a link, image, video, or quoted reply.

The documentation. It was updated March 24.

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