Discussion sites and question-answer pages can now inform Google whether their content is generated by artificial intelligence, accurately count comments, and better define shared content in discussion topics.

Highlights:

  • The new digitalSourceType feature allows indicating whether content is produced by artificial intelligence or an automated system.
  • The commentCount feature helps Google understand the actual response volume, even if not all comments are marked.
  • The sharedContent support is being expanded to better define links, images, videos, and quotes shared in a title.
  • These features are recommended but not mandatory: no existing applications have been disrupted.

On March 24, 2026, Google updated its documentation regarding structured data for forum pages (DiscussionForumPosting) and question-answer pages (QAPage). The aim is to reduce misinterpretation errors in discussion topics by providing publishers with finer tools to describe the nature and structure of their content.

Indicating the source of content with digitalSourceType

This is the most significant innovation of this update. The digitalSourceType feature allows sites to specify how content is produced, based on the IPTC enumeration values already used by Google for images. There are two supported values:

  • TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource for content produced by a model, such as an LLM.
  • AlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource for content from a simpler automated system, such as an automatic response bot.

This feature applies to DiscussionForumPosting, Comment, Question and Answer types. It is recommended but not mandatory. If absent, Google assumes by default that the content comes from a human source. Google has not yet provided an explanation of how this information will be used in ranking or display systems, but the document defines it as a way to indicate the source of content.

Better counting responses with commentCount

Google is now integrating the commentCount feature into both types of markup. This allows declaring the total number of comments associated with a post or response, including those not explicitly marked in the code, such as paginated or truncated ones.

For question-answer pages, Google is introducing a consistency rule in parallel: the sum of answerCount + commentCount must equal the total number of responses of all types. This provides Google with a more accurate view of the actual activity of a title, even if some of the content is not directly accessible within the markup.

Expansion of sharedContent support for forums

sharedContent feature now accepts four explicit subtypes to define the main item shared in a forum post:

  • WebPage for link shares.
  • ImageObject for posts where the main content is an image.
  • VideoObject for posts where the main content is a video.
  • DiscussionForumPosting or Comment for content quotes or reposts.

The last two types are new. The document provides a code example on how to mark a quote comment with its URL, author, date, and text. Google also specifies that link preview images should be placed in the WebPage field within sharedContent, not in the post's image field.

A note on robot tags outside of head

In addition to these developments regarding structured data, Google has also updated its documentation regarding meta robot tags. It is now officially documented that Google Search considers meta robot tags located in the section of an HTML document, not just in the section. Google states that this behavior has already existed, but it had never been formalized in the documentation.