Warning: Missing required field "updated"

This article discusses about the ‘Warning: Missing required field "updated".’ and ‘Warning: Missing required hCard "author"’error  under the heading  ‘Extracted rich snippet data from the page’ – ‘hfeed’ and ‘hentry’ in the Rich Snippets Testing Tool from Google webmaster tools. This error is found mostly in case of blogspot aka blogger blogs. If you are trying to include rich snippet in your blog/website hosted in blogger/blogspot for claiming authorship and you get this ‘Missing required field’ error then you are at the right place to solve the problem.

Overview

Google now accepts rich snippet in websites so that the author can claim authorship. Once in place all Google search in which the website with valid rich snippet markup, shows up will also show a thumbnail of the author’s pic and a link to their profile. A very good post on how to get things going is here ‘Display your Profile Picture in Google Search Results’ by Amit Agarwal (Digital Inspiration) . I too followed this article and mine is now actually working. After you follow the steps you can check if the markup is correct using the Rich Snippets Testing Tool from Google.

The Error - Warning: Missing required field "updated". And Warning: Missing required hCard "author" error

I am using blogspot/blogger blog and after I updated the rich snippet and tried to test it I found I am getting some errors. This error relates to hfeed and hentry. The exact reason for this error is not known to me. What it seems is that the blogger temple has hfeed and hentry fields but the elements ‘update’ and hCard ‘author’ is missing. I believe it is present in all temples as I have tested with quite a couple of temples all with the same error. It seems including hCard ‘author’ and ‘update’ in the snippet will temple will do the trick but I could not find a way – how. Although I was able to include ‘update’ field but failed at the hCard ‘author’ part. So what I did is removed the snippet itself. The complete step is given below.
But before you try out the step I must warn you that it takes up time for Google to show-up your thumbnail in search results and I do not know if the Missing required field error actually has anything to do with it. It is quite possible that the rich snippet will work even if the error is present.

A warning before you use the trick

Before you try out the trick I must warn you that we will be actually removing some elements from the temple namely – hfeed and hentry. This will obviously have some impact but what I cannot say. All I know about hfeed and hentry is that Hentry and hfeed are hAtom 0.1 microformat data but I am not sure why exactly we need it. So I would suggest you check out the official page here. Also you can Google hfeed and hentry or microformat to know more before you remove them. If anything goes wrong you will be responsible for it and not me. I warned you.

The solution to Missing required field/hCard error

This is what I did. I removed hfeed and hentry from my temple. To do this go to design section of blogger.com of your blog. Click on edit HTML. THIS IS EXTREMLY IMPORTANT: DOWNLOAD AND SAVE A COPY OF YOUR TEMPLETE. If any thing goes wrong we will need this to fix things up. Now search for hfeed in the template. You will get it two times. It will be something like this <div class='blog-posts hfeed'> just remove hfeed. You will now have something like <div class='blog-posts'>.
Next search for hentry. You will get <div class='post hentry'> and <div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template'>. Remove hentry from both so that you get <div class='post'> and <div class='post uncustomized-post-template'>.
Now save the template.
Now check in the Rich Snippets Testing Tool. The error will be gone and so will be the hfeed – hentry data. I have done so with my blog and now my articles featuring in Google Search results shows up my thumbnail and link to my profile.
If you still find the problem persisting try searching for hfeed & hentry in the temple again after you have checked the Expand Widget Templates box. Hope that works. All the best