“Have you heard our company’s latest announcement regarding new measures to tackle COVID this week”, “the client needs a new social media plan created exclusively for this COVID season”, “Government has relaxed its stringent financial policies to mitigate setbacks caused by COVID” etc, these are the conversations that exist in our life thanks to the new normal.
Though we are safe at home, respecting and maintaining social distancing we cannot escape the COVID talks in our lives. We need assurance from our close relatives and friends that they are alright, we need assurance that our economy is going to tackle this setback, we need assurance that we are going to win this war over a virus and come out unscathed.
Due to these many reasons (and some more) we are always attuned to COVID related topics. May it be in news or net we are always on the lookout for COVID related updates. Hence to facilitate this Google for its part has brought forth a new schema that will help businesses to communicate better regarding COVID Updates.
So what is this new schema about?
Google for its part has announced a special announcement schema to help brands/people in dealing with COVID related announcements. This new schema introduces specific announcements related to COVID-19 for specific events and events in a particular region. This set of specific COVID related announcements will be included in Google search results for the first time in Google’s search history.
In an official statement that was released from Google last week explained that it supports this new structured data, but did not mention when it should be used in SERP. Back then, we didn’t know how the markup looks like if Google used it to render search snippets. We also had no idea when this markup would be extended to search results. COVID-19 Special Announcements in Search Results
To use this special schema there are certain rules at play here. For your content material to be allowed to appear with a COVID special statement rich result you need to upload the brand new unique assertion dependent statistics to your page. Once done Google will display the COVID 19 unique announcement under your page’s normal snippet description.
As shown in the example above, the COVID-19 advisory rich results contain short summaries that you can expand to see more. Google will make this new markup available in search results for the first time, and here are the details.
Not all sites are Eligible for COVID-19 Rich Results
There are certain parts where the search giant is not clear about its latest schema. For now, it’s announced that the COVID 19 special shema results will appear in the same way as any normal search result would do. However, Google points out that the format can change at any time, and searchers may not see this change, as special high-profile results may only be displayed on certain websites.
Although the search results are now being released, Google says it is still actively evolving the feature, meaning it could eventually be extended to other types of sites. The results are expected to cover a wide range of topics, including news, sports, entertainment, politics, economics, education, technology, health, finance, etc.
Implementing COVID-19 Special Announcements
Here you will find more facts about the two implementation methods as well as a detailed description of the new search function.
Structured Data
This allows page owners to submit special announcements by filling out a form, and the search console also offers the ability to link to a special announcement page with a link back to the main page of the page.
Submitting announcements in Search Consoles
The recommended process for implementing the COVID-19 Special Announcements Markup is to add structured data to individual websites. Google offers a way to implement special notification markups for those who do not have the technical capabilities to use structured data.
After selecting the kind of announcement, seek console asks for the subsequent set of facts (that is equal for all assertion sorts):
- Announcement begin data
- Announcement stop date
- A title
- A description
- Geo Location or particular place for the announcement
The google webmaster tools also gives the option of connecting out to sources about disease prevention, getting tested, new updates, and other relevant stats.
The notices submitted in this way will only be appeared for a maximum period of 30 days, and the owner of the website may update the notices as long as they are still valid after those 30-days. The data for the announcements submitted in this way is recorded in the search console to report richer results. Google points out that this method of submitting concrete communications is not preferred and is intended only as a short-term solution.
