Google will not Support Data-Vocabulary from January 31, 2021
How many of you are aware of the news of shutting down of data-vocabulary structured data in April 2020? Every webmaster or SEO would know about the news because it is a huge part of the web marketing world. Let me tell you that Google announced to sun-set data-vocabulary.org structured data. Google said that all the sites using data-vocabulary.org structured data should begin moving to schema.org structured data. But nothing happened like that and data-vocabulary did not end in April. You know why? Due to Covid-19, Google postponed the date and extended it to June 2020. Then also nothing happened.
Now another update has released on data-vocabulary. In the recent news, Google confirms that they will not support data-vocabulary from January 31, 2021.
So let’s now dig into the update below.
Google ends the Support for data-vocabulary from January 31, 2021
In the introduction, I told you the whole story behind the postponement of data-vocabulary. Google did not end the support of it due to the covid-19 pandemic issue surrounding the world. But a few days ago, Google updated the web world that it will really deprecate the support of data-vocabulary by the end of January 2021.
Google has announced the update on Twitter on Google Webmasters account, “Please take note – from January 31, 2021, data-vocabulary.org markup will stop being eligible for Google search result features and enhancements.”
Moreover, Google said that this markup will stop being eligible for Google search result features and enhancements. Please update your markup following the instructions in this post.
Before I talk about instructions let me first clear you the concept of data-vocabulary below.
Understand the concept of data-vocabulary
Data-Vocabulary.org Structured Data is Google’s implementations of structured data introduced in 2009. However, it was replaced by schema.org structured data two years later in 2011.
On contrary, schema.org structured data is an open-source structured data that Google and other organizations supported. In 2011 Google updated the data-vocabulary.org site to add links to other pages to encourage the move to schema.org structured data.
In spite of, Google continued to support their version of structured data until the recent announcement.
How the change will affect rich results?
The announcement which Google released on April 6, 2020, says that data-vocabulary.org markup will no longer be eligible for Google rich result features. So it is clear that the data-vocabulary.org markup will not support rich result features. Moreover, Google said they will send notice to users who are still using the old system.
Do webmasters need to worry about the end of data-vocabulary.org?
There is nothing to worry about. Webmasters no need to panic. But if you are still worrying then there is one alternative for you which you can follow. So the solution is that you can convert your site from data-vocabulary to schema.org.
Therefore, schema.org structured data scheme can be used as a replacement of data-vocabulary. The solution will be eligible for Google rich result features.
According to Google, “As a preparation for the change and starting today, Search Console will issue warnings for pages using the data-vocabulary.org schema so that you can prepare for the sunset in time.”
Is there any need to follow the alternative or update structured data? Those who are thinking nothing will happen by not updating anything then this is a major mistake you are making right now. In the next section, you will get the answer to this question –
What will happen if you don’t update structured data?
Guys, if you don’t update your site pages with structured data then you may face decreased organic visibility and less traffic to the site. Before you update your site, you will first get a warning email on Google Search Console such as “Breadcrumbs issue detected on your site”
And in the top warning section it will be written, “Warnings are suggestions for improvement. Some warnings can affect your appearance on Search; some might be reclassified as errors in the future. The following warnings were found on your site: Data-vocabulary.org schema deprecated.”
So Google suggests you fix these issues when possible to enable the best experience and coverage in Google Search. With the help of the Structured Data Testing Tool, you can validate the new code by replacing the old one, and then you will see no error on your site.
Note: Google recommends using JSON-LD for structured data whenever possible. In fact, it is the most preferred option when it comes to popularity.
Summing it all together
After reading this article, one thing is clear that the non-availability of data-vocabulary.org will affect Google search result features and enhancements. Moreover, the pages using data vocabulary will remain valid for all other purposes. So if you want to avail Google rich result features, Google recommends you converting your data-vocabulary.org structured data to schema.org.
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