Could schema.org and GoodRelations be bad for SEO?

[pugh]

One of my clients is going through a redesign and I am considering implementing schema.org and GoodRelations as it is an e-commerce website.

The site sells cutting edge products and competes with some of the top tech blogs for rankings on the first page. Essentially, this means that e-commerce product listings are competing with news stories. It is becoming more and more difficult to rank as Google puts more emphasis on news over products in the serps, especially prior to a product release.

My concern is that in implementing schema.org and GoodRelations, detailing to seach engines that this is in-fact a product page and not news could harm rankings.

What opinions do others have on this?

[TakeshiYoung]

From my experiences and from the case studies I've read, schema.org generally helps with rankings. If it's a products site, then there should be no harm in using product specific semantic markup. Rich snippets such as review ratings can also increase CTR.

You're not going to fool Google into thinking a product site is a news site. If you want to compete on news, then create a separate section of the site that is news focused.