Google has made SpecialAnnouncement schema for Covid-19 UPDATE

Due to Covid-19, many organizations such as government websites, health organizations, schools and more are publishing urgent announcements on their website that can affect the daily schedules and other aspects of life. Some of these special announcements may include

• Announcement of a shelter-in-place directive
• Closure Notice (for example, closing a school or public transportation)
• Quarantine Guidelines
• Announcement of an event transitioning from offline to online, or cancellation
• Disease spread statistics and maps
• And other related announcements.

Although, support for this is still in development, Google has published guidelines through its SpecialAnnouncement schema for Covid-19 announcements and all the website owners can already begin marking up their content with it.

Why you need to care?

This special announcement can help keep users informed about their event and quarantine updates, travel restrictions, shelter-in-place orders, school and public transportation closures, new drive-through coronavirus testing centre openings and more, right from the search results page.

Google search will use this information to better understand the content of your web page and shows the important data to relevant people alongside your webpage result.