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So, I have the code below which works fine when entered into Google's Rich Snippet Testing Tool. The problem is that I don't need the Venue Name linked to any url. However, when I take out the a tag and simplify that line to just <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span>, the test tool tells me that the page doesn't contain any rich snippet markup. Furthermore, it gives off a warning like this:

Warning: Event urls are pointing to a different domain than the base url.

Is there a way to not have the name of the venue linked to anything?

Basically, I just want the result to look like this (with only the 'buy tickets' part linked):

Feb 2 — Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom - Buy tickets

I have uploaded the html file that I am testing with and entering into the test tool here.

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicGroup">

<h1 itemprop="name">Name</h1>

<div itemprop="events" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Event">
  <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2012-02-02">Date &mdash; 
  <span itemprop="location">City, State</span> - 
  <a href="/tour" itemprop="url">
    <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span>
  </a> - 
  <a href="http://ticketlink.com" itemprop="offers">Buy tickets</a>
</div>

</div>

2/16 - updated code

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicEvent">

<h1 itemprop="name">Name</h1>

<div itemprop="events" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Event">
  <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2012-02-02">Date &mdash; 
  <span itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
    <span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
      <span itemprop="addressLocality">City</span>,
      <span itemprop="addressRegion">State</span>
    </span>- 
    <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span> - 
  <div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer">
    <a href="http://ticketlink.com" itemprop="url">Buy tickets</a>
  </div>
  </span>
</div>

</div>

2/17 - updated code

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicGroup">
    <h1 itemprop="name">Name</h1>

    <div itemprop="events" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicEvent">
      <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2012-02-02">Date &mdash; 
      <span itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
        <span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
          <span itemprop="addressLocality">City</span>,
          <span itemprop="addressRegion">State</span>
        </span>- 
        <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span> - 
        <div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer">
          <a href="http://ticketlink.com" itemprop="url">Buy tickets</a>
        </div>
      </span>
    </div>
</div>

2/17 - new updated code

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicGroup">
  <h1 itemprop="name">Name</h1>

  <div itemprop="events" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicEvent">
    <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2012-02-02">Date &mdash; 
    <span itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
      <span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
        <span itemprop="addressLocality">City</span>,
        <span itemprop="addressRegion">State</span>
      </span>- 
      <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span> - 
    </span>
    <div itemprop="offers">
      <a href="http://ticketlink.com" itemprop="url">Buy tickets</a>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
John
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2 Answers2

5

There a few things I am noticing here.

  1. Unless, I misunderstand, this is a music event, so you should probably use the more specific itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicEvent".

  2. The "location" itemprop also needs to be an itemtype of http://schema.org/Place or http://schema.org/PostalAddress. This will also solve your name itemprop issue. So for example:

    <span itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place>
  <span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress>
    <span itemprop="addressLocality">City</span>,
    <span itemprop="addressRegion">State</span>
  </span>
  <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span>
</span>

    See my next point on why I left out the url itemprop.

  3. The offers property is another itemtype, so you'll want something like this:

    <div itemprop="offers" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer>
  <a href="http://ticketlink.com" itemprop="url">Presale tickets</a>
</div>

    However, I'm not entirely sure that you can have a link to another domain in a url itemprop. This is undocumented but I've yet to see an example of one that does. You may need to leave out the offer itemprop and just let Google bring in ticket information from ticketlink themselves.

  4. Please see my answer to your other question about how these rich snippet links you're trying to reproduce are actually being populated in search results.

UPDATE: Here is the final code snippet that passes the Testing Tool

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicGroup">
  <h1 itemprop="name">Name</h1>

  <div itemprop="events" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/MusicEvent">
    <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2012-02-02">Date &mdash; 
    <span itemprop="name">Event Name</span>        
    <span itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
      <span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
        <span itemprop="addressLocality">City</span>,
        <span itemprop="addressRegion">State</span>
      </span>- 
      <span itemprop="name">Venue Name</span> - 
    </span>
    <a href="http://ticketlink.com" itemprop="offers">Buy tickets</a>
  </div>
</div>
Community
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Johnathon Sanders
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  • Thank you for your thorough explanation. However, I'm still getting a couple errors when I run the updated code (edited the OP) through Google's snippet tool. These errors are `Page contains property "events" which is not part of the schema.` and `Missing required field "dtstart".`. Would you have any idea how to solve these issues? – John Feb 16 '12 at 08:21
  • My point #1 wasn't very clear, I apologize. You should change your
    back to
    and then update your
    to be
    Give that a whirl and see what the tool says.
     – Johnathon Sanders Feb 16 '12 at 16:36
  • Thank you. I'm still getting a couple errors: 1) for /musicgroup, I get `missing required field 'name'` and for /place, I get `page contains property 'offers' which is not part of the schema`. I posted the updated code above. – John Feb 17 '12 at 09:25
  • The "offers" div needs to be a subelement of the MusicEvent itemType div in the dom, but currently it exists inside of the "location" itemProp span. To fix that, you'll need to move up the closing span tag for the location property to be under your "Venue Name" and before the "offers" div. – Johnathon Sanders Feb 18 '12 at 02:14
  • Thanks again. I updated the code in the OP. Now, I'm getting two errors for /musicgroup: 1) `Event urls are pointing to a different domain than the base url.` and 2) `Missing required field "name".` – John Feb 18 '12 at 04:45
  • The #2 error means you need to have a `Event Name` inside of your MusicEvent div. To solve #1, I'm going to change my original answer and have you remove the offers div and revert the ticketlink link tag to be `Buy tickets`. I have verified that this code does indeed pass without warnings. I'll update my answer to show what the completely passing code I have tested is. You should be able to move the "Event Name" around inside of the MusicEvent div if you like, as long as it's kept in the same heirarchy. – Johnathon Sanders Feb 20 '12 at 16:28
  • I should add that it appears the Testing Tool is more forgiving with the link pointing to an external site when you just have that offers itemprop on the href instead of on a new Offer object, that is why I changed offer div back. Hopefully this has all been worth it for you :) – Johnathon Sanders Feb 20 '12 at 16:55
  • I copied and pasted your final code and uploaded it (http://bit.ly/wfn0rl) but Google's testing tool is saying `This page does not contain authorship or rich snippet markup.` However, there are no errors. Is there something else that may need to be added? Sorry for the trouble. This is really confusing, though! :) – John Feb 20 '12 at 23:18
  • You probably just need to have complete html structure on your test page. – Johnathon Sanders Mar 05 '12 at 18:56
  • I added the `html`, `head`, and `body` tags but it still does not seem to work. Thank you anyway for your help. I at least learned something about how this works. – John Mar 07 '12 at 13:31
1

I had the same problem as you. The formatting looks okay to me; however, it appears that Google is somehow "flagging" event listings where the URL is different from the domain the page is hosted on. I just noticed this problem in a site I manage as well.

I have contacted Google about this to see what the problem is. In the exceedingly unlikely chance that an actual human replies to my query, I will update my answer here with more information.

jsdalton
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