Enabling Rich Snippets for Events

[Lars]

Since the update to the events calendar 4.0. and the events calendar pro to version 4.0. there are no structured event data anymore shown in the widget event list (https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/).

ex. version 3.12.6: http://www.stadtfuehrungen-in-muenster.de/stadtrundfahrt-muenster.html (with structured event data)
ex. version 4.0.6 / 4.06. (pro): http://5.k3.de/ (no structured event data)

Is it possible to reactivate google structured data such as: hcalendar, dtstart, summary, dtend, duration, location [adr]?

Brook – Modern Tribe Support Rep – wrote 5 months ago to fabio.grasso: “We are working on some fixes for that in our next feature release.”

Is there a solution to show the data in the widget now?

Best,
Lars

[Brook]

Howdy Lars,

Thanks for researching this and sharing what you’ve learned. I would love to help you with this.

I had to dig up the topic you referenced, because I was surprised that we had ever planned to add more structured data to the list widget. I found the topic. I evidently was not clear enough with my wording there, and I apologize. I said:

There shouldn’t be any structured data showing for the widget, we are limiting that to single-event pages only.

What I meant by that is that the widget should not have structured data. Any data it had shown was a glitch, and one we planned to rectify. People were complaining that the event data was showing up on SERPs for every page that had the widget, instead of their regular structured data that was actually the main content on the page. To us that was a very understandable complaint, so we removed structured data from the widget to fix what people considered a “bug”.

If you want the data back in the widget you would need to add it as a customization. You could definitely do this using a theme override for this file: /events-calendar-pro/src/views/pro/widgets/modules/single-event.php We have a step-by-step guide on creating such overrides in our Themer’s Guide.

Does that all make sense? Will that work for you? Please let me know.

Cheers!

– Brook

[Lars]

Hey Brook,

thanks for you quick reply. Tools are used in different ways, for one part structured data seems to be a bug, for others it might appear as quiet welcome.

For me, structured data in the widget was very helpful. As I wrote to Cliff: “You will never achieve a good ranking with a single event site. This site will appear – once you published the event – and disappear after the event. This is why a single event site – which shows structured data – will stay in the middle of nowhere on SERP showing structured data and disappear. Concerning SEO you want to show structured data on a permanent site, which changes just the upcoming list of events with structured data. This is why, it was quiet a good thing – though a bug – to implement structured data in the widget. You could use it on every SEO optimised website.” I’d like to add, that this is a view regarding especially recurring events which I use only. With structured data on the single event page belonging to recurring events you will create duplicate content. For this case you need an assemblee of structured data on a landing page. I had quiet good experience with the eventscalendar 3.12.6 in this regard. Cliff mentioned also another customer who came up with a similar feedback (see my other support thread).

Could you imagine to publish a code, how to modify /events-calendar-pro/src/views/pro/widgets/modules/single-event.php exactly to get the structured data back for those who are a fan of the wonderful bug in the list widget?

Best,
Lars

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by Lars.

[Brook]

Howdy Lars,

I truly appreciate your sharing your usecase, and feedback. I can see how some other people might be in similar shoes.

To be upfront I doubt we will ever introduce the hAtom format into the widget again. Just maintaining it on the other pages has proven to be a pain, because it breaks/has bugs pretty often. However, there is one glimmer of hope. We are considering switching away from hAtom entirely to a different easier to maintain microformat, and if we ever do it will likely be considerably easier to insert that format into other templates as needed. In the mean time though, the only guaranteed solution I have for you is the one I outlined above. You might checkout some examples on sites like this, it’s not super hard to implement if you have a CSS background: http://microformats.org/wiki/h-event

Please let me know if you have any questions or anything. Cheers!
– Brook

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
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