Google has updated its Discussion forum And Questions and answers page structured data documentation, adding several new supported properties to both markup types.
The most notable addition is digitalSourceTypea property that allows forum and Q&A sites to indicate when content was created by a trained AI model or other automated system.
Content Source Tagging Comes to Forum Tagging
The new digitalSourceType The property uses IPTC digital source enumeration values to indicate how the content was created. Google supports two values:
TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSourcefor content created by a trained model, such as an LLM.AlgorithmicMediaDigitalSourcefor content created by a simpler algorithmic process, such as an auto-responder bot.
The property is listed as recommended and non-required, both for the DiscussionForumPosting And Comment types in the discussion forum documentation, and for Question, AnswerAnd Comment types in the documentation on the Q&A page.
Google already uses similar IPTC source type values in its image metadata documentation to identify how the images were created. The update extends this concept to textual content in forums and Q&As.
New comment count property
Google added commentCount as a recommended property on both documentation pages. It allows sites to report the total number of comments on a post or reply, even when not all comments appear in the markup.
The Q&A page documentation includes a new formula: answerCount + commentCount must equal the total number of responses of any type. This gives Google a clearer picture of thread activity on pages where comments are paginated or truncated.
Expanded support for shared content
The discussion forum documentation has expanded its sharedContent property. Previously, sharedContent accepted a generic CreativeWork type. The updated docs now explicitly list four supported subtypes:
WebPagefor shared links.ImageObjectfor posts where an image is the main content.VideoObjectfor posts where a video is the main content.DiscussionForumPostingOrCommentfor content cited or reposted from other threads.
The addition of DiscussionForumPosting And Comment because the accepted types are new. Google’s updated documentation includes sample code showing how to tag a referenced comment with its URL, author, date, and text.
THE image The property description has also been updated in both documents with a note about link preview images. Google now recommends placing link preview images inside the sharedContent the field is attached WebPage rather than in the message image field.
Why it matters
For sites that publish a mix of human and machine-generated content, the digitalSourceType The addition provides a structured way to communicate this to Google. The new properties are optional and no existing implementations will be broken.
Google did not specify how it would use the digitalSourceType data in its filing or display systems. The documentation describes it only as a way to indicate the origin of content.
Looking to the future
The update does not include changes to required properties, so existing implementations of forum and Q&A structured data remain valid. Sites that want to adopt the new properties can add them gradually.
