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Hey @collegis_education! The primary difference between the two tools is that the Rich Results Test shows what types of Google results can be generated from your markup, whereas the schema markup validator offers generic schema validation. So the markup validator may be showing that there are no issues with the way your schema is written syntactically, but Google may still have an issue generating a particular type of search result based on that schema.

Be sure to take a close look at the errors the Rich Results Test is throwing, as some are more like warnings - not every aspect of the schema is necessary in order for Google to generate a rich result, but obviously if there's a particular piece of the markup that's missing (i.e. In-Stock status), it won't be included in that result.

Hey @jordanchris! When adding any outbound links to a page, the most important question to ask yourself is whether users will gain meaningful and significant value from those links. Adding spammy outbound links to your site is harmful in a similar way to receiving lots of spammy inbound links - it puts your site in a bad overall "link neighborhood" and often causes search engines to assume your site itself is of low quality.

If you think your site users will value these links, go ahead and include them - but consider other ways you can demonstrate your site's authority and trustworthiness at the same time. Are there organic and natural ways you might earn links from other authoritative sites in your industry? Is there a need for high-quality content within your industry that your site can reasonably contribute? Your outbound links are just one part of Google's total perception of your site, so beefing up your E-A-T signals in other ways can help offset any potentially questionable actions you're testing.

BTW, "testing" is a good way to approach something like this. If you add this directory page and find that your site seems to be suffering in the eyes of the search engines within 3-6 months of the change, consider reverting or altering the decision.

Hey @collegis_education! The primary difference between the two tools is that the Rich Results Test shows what types of Google results can be generated from your markup, whereas the schema markup validator offers generic schema validation. So the markup validator may be showing that there are no issues with the way your schema is written syntactically, but Google may still have an issue generating a particular type of search result based on that schema.

Be sure to take a close look at the errors the Rich Results Test is throwing, as some are more like warnings - not every aspect of the schema is necessary in order for Google to generate a rich result, but obviously if there's a particular piece of the markup that's missing (i.e. In-Stock status), it won't be included in that result.