Google announced that it is dropping support for the 2020 COVID-era Special Announcements structured data type and completely phasing it out by July 31, 2025. The announcement was posted on the SpecialAnnouncement structured data documentation.
SpecialAnnouncement Structured Data
This structured data type was adopted by Google in April 2020 as a way to announce a wide range of information related to the COVID pandemic. It was specifically for COVID related announcements and it never evolved beyond pandemic related purposes although Google did allow the use of this structured data for local businesses to announce new store hours as a way to communicate to Google that data while not necessarily showing a rich result.
Interestingly, this structured data was released as a “beta” feature, meaning that it was a live test subject to changes and was never integrated as an official structured data, remaining a beta feature to the end.
There were two ways to submit a special announcement notice, by structured data and Google Search console.
Users who continue to use the Special Announcement structured data will have no negative effect by keeping it on their site but it will have no effect on Google Search.
Read Google’s special announcement about the deprecation of the SpecialAnnouncement structured data here:
Special announcement (SpecialAnnouncement) structured data (BETA)
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