The Google Search Preview Tool

The Google Search Preview is not a real Search results page.  It helps you preview your structured data markup for web or mobile app URL as it would appear in the Google Search results page. This helps you ensure your structured data markup or App Indexing integration generates the Google Search display you expect.

The tool uses a prominent message to indicate that Search results are only a preview.

When viewing the preview results, keep the following in mind:

• The search preview is approximate.
  Real Google Search results for your data might look different.

• The search preview is illustrative.
  We do not guarantee that the content you preview will be displayed in Search results. Your content will likely appear in Search results for relevant queries, but that content must first pass through our systems to be appropriately indexed and ranked before it appears in actual Search results. We reserve the right to filter out any results at our discretion if it violates our quality guidelines. Finally, any preview tool URL for your content is only valid for a limited duration (e.g. weeks).

• We don’t guarantee the specific position of the result on an actual search result page.

• Non-US developers might need to do an extra step to see the preview results.  
  If you use Google outside of the US, sometimes Google redirects the URL to your local domain, such as google.com.hk. If you can't see preview results in your local domain, first go to www.google.com/ncrto disable the domain redirect. Then open the preview URL to view the preview result.
  
  This work-around creates a browser cookie that disables redirect.  You can manually remove that cookie to re-instate the default redirect behavior.

Search preview results link to this page

The Structured Data Testing Tool and the Firebase App Indexing Preview Tool are open to the public to test web markup and app URLs. Because any URL can be provided by a developer, we direct the preview result to this page rather than the link provided by developer in order to prevent phishing.

You can be assured that if you provide the correct URL for your content, the link will operate correctly when it appears in the Search results page.

Rich card placeholder images and title

If you are testing rich card markup, you can see your actual image in the preview if we confirm, or verify, that the image URL is in our index.  However, the preview displays a placeholder image if our systems cannot verify the image URL. Even so, when your rich card markup reaches our systems, the image you provide should be shown correctly in the actual Google Search results.

In addition, the preview tool always uses a placeholder title for Rich Cards for expediency. This is because the title for the actual Rich Card in Search is based on your website’s title, which is what you would see when your card reaches production.