Event Schema Update by Google during Covid-19

Google keeps making changes to its search to provide more relevant and accurate results for users. Because of the Corona outbreak, Google has made many changes in search with the Event Schema type. Below are some changes by Google.

Properties for Status of Events

Google has added new properties to Structured Data Types, and its a part of scheme updates. Due to Covid-19 for the Status of events. Many events are being canceled, postponed, or moved to online. For this, The schema.org eventStatus property sets the status of the event. It helps Google to show users the current status of an event, instead of removing the event from the search results.

As per Google:

• You can Set the eventStatus property to EventCancelled, If the event has been canceled:

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Event",
"eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventCancelled",
"startDate": "2020-07-21T19:00"
}

• If the event has been postponed: update the eventStatus to EventPostponed but keep the original date in the startDate of the event until you know when the event will take place. The startDate property is required to help identify the unique event, and we need the date original startDate until you know the new date.

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Event",
"eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventPostponed",
"startDate": "2020-07-21T19:00"
}

• Once you know the new date information, change the eventStatus to EventRescheduled and update the startDate and endDate with the new date information.
• If the event has been rescheduled to a later date: Update the startDate and endDate with the relevant new dates. Optionally, you can also mark the eventStatus field as EventRescheduled and add the previousStartDate.

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Event",
"eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventRescheduled",
"startDate": "2020-07-21T19:00",
"endDate": "2025-07-21T23:00",
"previousStartDate": "2025-03-21T19:00"
}

• If the event has moved from in-person to online-only: Optionally update the eventStatus field to indicate the change with EventMovedOnline.

{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Event",
"eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventMovedOnline",
"eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OnlineEventAttendanceMode",
"location": {
"@type":"VirtualLocation",
"url": "https://operaonline.stream5.com/"
},
"startDate": "2020-07-21T19:00"
}

After you update your website with this markup, don’t forget to update Google about this through the search console. Make sure you update your sitemap.