GSoftwareLab has been working on its revolutionary Google Structured Data Testing Tool since 2016, and now it’s free to use online as well as available in the GSoftwareLab Desktop version. But what are the differences between this tool and Index Buddy by GSoftwareLab?
How do they work? Is one of them better than the other? Read our comparison article to find out the answers to these questions and many more! There are several points that we need to address, including how each of these tools works, how they differ from each other, and how you can use them for your SEO purposes.
Overview of Google Structured Data Testing Tool
You can use Google’s structured data testing tool to test web pages for search engine compatibility with Google-rich snippets. You need to prepare a structured data testing tool in advance and upload your web page, which is particularly helpful when you have just begun developing your website or are not sure whether your web page contains structured data code correctly.
The structured data testing tool will display detailed information about your web page including all of its URLs, their titles, descriptions, and headings. You can also see how well each URL on your site matches each item type as well as how many items of each type appear on a given URL.
If you find that some URLs do not match any item types at all or contain more than one item type per URL, it means that either there is no structured data on those URLs or that they do not contain it correctly.
The results for individual URLs are displayed in a table with two columns: URL and Item Type. If an item type does not apply to a particular URL, then it displays No under Does Not Apply. If you want to view all of your structured data testing tool’s results at once, click on Export All Results.
A new tab will open with all of your web page’s URLs listed along with their corresponding structured data information. This tab is also useful if you want to share your structured data testing tool’s results on social media or email them to someone else as an attachment.
Overview of IndexBuddy
IndexBuddy is a web-based tool that helps you identify problems with your schema markup and implement recommended fixes on your website. It also offers a limited set of features for indexing new pages and will crawl your website, submitting to Google’s index at specified intervals. The UI is very simple and intuitive – we recommend it as an easy first step if you want to get into structured data but don’t know where to start.
UI and Features
The main advantage of using IndexBuddy over Google’s testing tool is that it will tell you how many issues are on each page (and subpage) of your site, whereas Google’s testing tool only gives one summary number for all pages together. This can be very useful when trying to prioritize which issues need fixing first. Another feature that makes IndexBuddy more powerful than Google’s tool is its ability to view problems in a timeline, giving you a visual representation of when errors were introduced and fixed.
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The main disadvantage of using IndexBuddy over Google’s testing tool is that it doesn’t show you any actual structured data errors – just markup problems. So if your issue is a missing item-scope attribute, for example, you won’t be able to see that with IndexBuddy, whereas Google’s tool will show you what exactly needs fixing. Also, while IndexBuddy can crawl your website and submit pages to index at specified intervals, it cannot do so automatically on a schedule – instead of requiring manual intervention each time.
Comparison of features between both tools
Google’s structured data testing tool VS IndexBuddy from GS Software Lab. These 2 tools are very similar and offer almost the same functionalities. So what are their differences and which one to use? Let’s find out! IndexBuddy offers a free trial period of 14 days while Google’s structured data testing tool only allows you to test up to 10 URLs at a time.
It gives you a direct comparison between your site and other sites that have implemented Schema markup correctly so that you can see how they look on search engine results pages (SERPs). This helps give you an idea of whether or not it would be worth your time to implement schema on your site as well.
This tool also allows you to check individual elements within each page, which is great for seeing what’s working and what isn’t. With Google’s structured data testing tool, you only get a pass/fail result for each page, but with IndexBuddy, you can see exactly where things are going wrong.
The biggest advantage of using Google’s structured data testing tool is that it is completely free. However, if you are serious about getting your site to rank better in search results, then I would recommend using IndexBuddy instead. It offers more features and allows you to see exactly what changes need to be made for your site to look good on SERPs.
Conclusion
Choosing a structured data testing tool is often hard for webmasters because of different opinions, and opinions that one product is better than another. The truth is, both Google Structured Data Testing Tool and IndexBuddy have pros and cons depending on what you need to check. If you have time to use them both, start with Google Structured Data Testing Tool because it works faster in most cases.