Livestream

The livestream feature adds a live badge to video thumbnails in search results. In order for the badge to appear, we'll need to know whether the video is live or when the stream begins. The live badge can be applied to any public video that is live streamed for any duration of time. Here are a few examples:

• Sporting events
• Awards shows
• Influencer videos
• Live streaming video games

Example

Here's an example of VideoObject and isLiveBroadcast using JSON-LD code in the Structured Data Testing Tool.

{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "VideoObject", "contentURL": "https://example.com/bald-eagle-at-the-park.mp4", "description": "Bald eagle at the park livestream.", "duration": "PT37M14S", "embedUrl": "https://example.com/bald-eagle-at-the-park", "expires": "2016-10-30T14:37:14+00:00", "interactionCount": "4756", "name": "Bald eagle nest livestream!", "thumbnailUrl": "https://example.com/bald-eagle-at-the-park", "uploadDate": "2018-02-27T14:00:00+00:00" } "publication": [{ // The current broadcast. "@type": "BroadcastEvent", "isLiveBroadcast": true, "startDate": "2018-02-27T14:00:00+00:00", "endDate": "2016-10-27T14:37:14+00:00" }, { // The next scheduled broadcast (also live, not retransmission). "@type": "BroadcastEvent", "isLiveBroadcast": true, "startDate": "2016-10-27T18:00:00+00:00" }], } }

Guidelines

You must follow these guidelines for your content to be eligible to display as a rich result with a live badge:

• Webmaster guidelines
• General structured data guidelines
• Content guidelines
• Video best practices

Warning: If your site violates one or more of these guidelines, then Google may take manual action against it. Once you have remedied the problem, you can submit your site for reconsideration.

Content guidelines

• Don't use vulgar or potentially offensive language in the structured data.

Structured data type definitions

You must include the required properties for your content to be eligible for display as a rich result. You can also include the recommended properties to add more information about your content, which could provide a better user experience.

VideoObject

The full definition of VideoObject is available at schema.org/VideoObject.

Required properties
contentUrl	URL You must provide a URL to your video. You can provide a URL by using one or both of the following properties: contentUrl and embedUrl. A URL pointing to the actual video media file. Example "contentUrl": "https://www.example.com/video/123/file.mp4" Tip: You can ensure that only Googlebot accesses your content by using a reverse DNS lookup.
description	Text The description of the video.
embedUrl	URL You must provide a URL to your video. You can provide a URL by using one or both of the following properties: contentUrl and embedUrl. A URL pointing to a player for the specific video. Usually this is the information in the src element of an <embed> tag. Example "embedUrl": "https://www.example.com/embed/123" Tip: You can ensure that only Googlebot accesses your content by using a reverse DNS lookup.
name	Text The title of the video.
thumbnailUrl	Repeated field of ImageObject or URL A URL pointing to the video thumbnail image file. Additional image guidelines: Every page must contain at least one image (whether or not you include markup). Google will pick the best image to display in Search results based on the aspect ratio and resolution. Image URLs must be crawlable and indexable. Images must represent the marked up content. Images must be in .jpg, .png, or. gif format. For best results, provide multiple high-resolution images (minimum of 50K pixels when multiplying width and height) with the following aspect ratios: 16x9, 4x3, and 1x1. For example: "image": [ "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg", "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg", "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg" ]
uploadDate	Date The date the video was first published, in ISO 8601 format.
publication	BroadcastEvent Describes when the video is to be streamed live. Can be a list or a single instance.

Recommended properties
duration	duration The duration of the video in ISO 8601 format.
expires	Text If applicable, the date after which the video will no longer be available, in ISO 8601 format. Don't supply this information if your video does not expire.
interactionCount	Text The number of times the video has been viewed.

BroadcastEvent

The full definition of BroadcastEvent is available at schema.org/BroadcastEvent. BroadcastEvent properties must be included inside the VideoOject entity.

Required properties
endDate	Text Time and date of when the livestream ends or is expected to end, in ISO 8601 format. It is required to provide the endDate once the video has finished and is no longer live. If the expected endDate is unknown prior to the livestream starting, we recommend providing an approximate endDate. If endDate is in the past or present, it indicates stream actually ended and is no longer live. If endDate is in the future, it indicates stream is scheduled to end at that time.
isLiveBroadcast	Boolean Set to true if the video is, has been, or will be streamed live.
startDate	Text Time and date of when the livestream starts or is expected to start, in ISO 8601 format. If startDate is in the past or present, it indicates that the stream actually started. If startDate is in the future, it indicates stream is scheduled to start at that time.

Update Google quickly with the Indexing API

We recommend using the Indexing API to ensure that Google crawls your livestream quickly. Call the API for the following events:

• When the video goes live
• When the video has stopped streaming, and the page's markup has been updated to indicate the endDate
• Whenever a change has happened in the markup and Google needs to be notified