Did you know that Google shows “out of stock” for items you label with the value of back ordered in your structured data for products? Some feel it should say back ordered and not out of stock, but I am not too sure if there is much of a difference?

Brian Freiesleben posted about this on Twitter and he also referenced others complaining about this in the Google Webmaster Help forums.

Here is what Google sees from the structured data, the item availability is marked as back ordered:

But instead of showing back ordered, Google displays out of stock in Google Search:

A year ago, Google began to officially support back ordered availability structured data. But again, Google does not show the item as back ordered, it shows it as out of stock.

Here are some of the complaints in the forums:

John Mueller of Google asked if there is a difference…

So – what do you think? Is there a difference to the customer if an item is back ordered or currently out of stock?

Forum discussion at Twitter and Google Webmaster Help.