New properties for virtual, postponed, and canceled events

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

In the current environment and status of COVID-19 around the world, many events are being
canceled, postponed, or moved to an online-only format. Google wants to show users the latest,
most accurate information about your events in this fast-changing environment, and so we’ve
added some new, optional properties to our
developer documentation
to help. These properties apply to all regions and languages. This is one part of our overall efforts in
schema updates to
support publishers and users. Here are some important tips on keeping Google up to date on your events.

Update the status of the event

The schema.org eventStatus property sets the status of the event, particularly when the event has been canceled, postponed,
or rescheduled. This information is helpful because it allows Google to show users the current
status of an event, instead of dropping the event from the event search experience altogether.

• If the event has been canceled: Set the
  eventStatus
  property to EventCancelled
  and keep the original date in the
  startDate of
  the event.
• If the event has been postponed (but the date isn’t known yet): Keep the original date in the
  startDate of
  the event until you know when the event will take place and update the
  eventStatus
  to EventPostponed.
  The startDate
  property is required to help identify the unique event, and we need the date original
  startDate
  until you know the new date. 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.
• If the event has moved from in-person to online-only: Optionally update the
  eventStatus
  field to indicate the change with EventMovedOnline.

For more information on how to implement the eventStatus property, refer to the
developer documentation.

Mark events as online only

More events are shifting to online only, and we’re actively working on a way to show this
information to people on Google Search. If your event is happening only online, make sure to
use the following properties:

• Set the location to the
  VirtualLocation
  type.
• Set the
  eventAttendanceMode
  property to
  OnlineEventAttendanceMode.

For more information on how to implement the VirtualLocation type,
refer to the developer documentation.

Update Google when your event changes

After you make changes to your markup, make sure you
update Google. We recommend that you
make your sitemap available automatically
through your server. This is the best way to make sure that your new and updated content is
highlighted to search engines as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions, let us know through the
Webmasters forum or on
Twitter.

Posted by Emily Fifer, Event Search Product Manager