Google is currently testing the new schema to markup local business data for updating the local information of any business.
Search engine giant, Google recently announced that they are adding a new structured markup page that will help businesses in providing local business data to Google.
Google presented the document about these changes and wrote “We are currently piloting this feature with a restricted set of initial data providers. We hope to soon open up the feature so any provider who implements spec-compliant markup is eligible to participate.”
Though being in testing phase, the benefit of this new schema is that now businesses can easily markup their web pages and can efficiently communicate these updates to their local business data to Google. These changes by search engine giant can make the process simpler for both Google as well as local businesses in showing more accurate and real-time data in the Google local knowledge panel that shows up in the search results.
What’s more interesting is that Google released the Google My Business API last week that aimed at making the task simpler for the businesses to send updated local business information in a programmatic manner to Google.
This new schema is far different as in this the markup is added directly to the website. When Googlebot crawls the site and notices the markup, the latest data found can be used by Google to update the local business data.
Although the update is yet not out for public, but you can likely start adding this markup to your own site.