How to fix unparsable structured data issues detected by Google Search Console

Written by Claudio Kuenzler - 0 comments

Published on November 20th 2022 - last updated on November 29th 2022 - Listed in Internet PHP Personal

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In the past days I've added structured (json) data to all my blog articles. This (supposedly) helps for better search engine indexing and therefore search engine optimization.

But it didn't take long, until Google Search Console detected the first error on one article and sent an e-mail:

Logging into the Search Console confirms that one invalid structured data was found, on one page:

Obviously I validated the structured data using the schema validator before going live and no issues were found. Why would Google now complain about the data? And why only one one article (so far)?

Invalid JSON detected

The error/issue mentioned by Google is:

Parsing error: Missing ',' or '}'

If you've dealt with JSON in the past, you immediately know that this is a JSON parsing error. Some closing bracket or a comma (for multiple values in the same context) seems to be missing. Let's take a look at the JSON data of that affected blog article and let it run through jq (a command to parse JSON):

ck@mint ~ $ echo '{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://www.claudiokuenzler.com/blog/1126/how-to-monitor-handle-evicted-pods-container-rancher-kubernetes" }, "headline": "How to monitor and handle evicted pods (containers) in Rancher managed Kubernetes ", "image": [ "https://www.claudiokuenzler.com/graph/news/1126-rancher-evicted-pods.png" ], "datePublished": "2021-09-17T15:55:25+02:00", "dateModified": "2021-09-17T15:55:25+02:00", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claudio Kuenzler" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claudio Kuenzler" }, "description": "Whenever a Kubernetes node runs into resource problems, it tries to recover itself by "evicting" pods. This process is called the node-pressure eviction." }' | jq
parse error: Invalid numeric literal at line 1, column 734

Indeed, jq confirms a JSON parsing problem. Looking at column/character 734 in the output shows this part:

"description": "Whenever a Kubernetes node runs into resource problems, it tries to recover itself by "evicting" pods. This process is called the node-pressure eviction." }

See the problem? The word evicting is surrounded by double-quotes, which are understood as end of the description value in this JSON data.

Replace double quotes by single quotes

As my site is using PHP in the background, I used the str_replace() function to replace all the double quotes showing up in the description text, retrieved from a MySQL table and stored in variable $description:

$description = str_replace('"', "'", $description);

The final JSON output now shows single quotes surrounding the word "evicting" and is now parsable by jq:

ck@mintp ~ $ echo '{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://indev.claudiokuenzler.com/blog/1126/how-to-monitor-handle-evicted-pods-container-rancher-kubernetes" }, "headline": "How to monitor and handle evicted pods (containers) in Rancher managed Kubernetes ", "image": [ "https://indev.claudiokuenzler.com/graph/news/1126-rancher-evicted-pods.png" ], "datePublished": "2021-09-17T15:55:25+02:00", "dateModified": "2021-09-17T15:55:25+02:00", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claudio Kuenzler" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Claudio Kuenzler" }, "description": "Whenever a Kubernetes node runs into resource problems, it tries to recover itself by 'evicting' pods. This process is called the node-pressure eviction." }' |jq
{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "NewsArticle",
  "mainEntityOfPage": {
    "@type": "WebPage",
    "@id": "https://indev.claudiokuenzler.com/blog/1126/how-to-monitor-handle-evicted-pods-container-rancher-kubernetes"
  },
  "headline": "How to monitor and handle evicted pods (containers) in Rancher managed Kubernetes ",
  "image": [
    "https://indev.claudiokuenzler.com/graph/news/1126-rancher-evicted-pods.png"
  ],
  "datePublished": "2021-09-17T15:55:25+02:00",
  "dateModified": "2021-09-17T15:55:25+02:00",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Claudio Kuenzler"
  },
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Claudio Kuenzler"
  },
  "description": "Whenever a Kubernetes node runs into resource problems, it tries to recover itself by evicting pods. This process is called the node-pressure eviction."
}

The fix can now be validated in Google's Search Console.

TL;DR: Verify your JSON data manually, then fix

When Google Search Console identified "unparsable structured data issues", first find out which page(s) is/are affected in the Search Console, then verify the JSON on that page(s). Either manually, for example with the jq command as seen above, or by using the Schema Validator online. If text is read from a database, you might have to adjust the resulting string variable as I had to.

After a few days: Issue is fixed

A couple of days later, Google finally sent an e-mail confirming that "unparsable structured data issues successfully fixed for site".

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