Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Could I set a Cruise as an Event in Schema mark up?
-
Hi there,
We are now in the process of implementing a JSON-LD mark-up solution and are building cruises as an event. Will this work and can we get away with this without penalty?
Previously they have been marking their cruises as events using the data highlighter and this has displayed correctly in the SERP.
The ideal schema would be Trip but this is not supported by Google Rich Results yet, hopefully they will support this in the future.
Another alternative would be product but this does not display rich-results as we would like. Event has the best result in terms of how the information is displayed. For example someone might search "Cruises to Spain" and the landing page would display the next 3 cruises that go to Spain, with dates & prices.
The event location would be the cruise terminal, the offer would be the starting price and the start & end date would be the cruise duration, these are fixed dates.
I am interested to hear the communities opinion and experience with this problem.
-
I don't know of an absolute / definitive answer. If it were my site, I think I would be happy to take the chance with Event markup since there is no perfect match, as you say.
Evidence in each direction:
- Yes - this is OK - Google's schema page talks about "If the event happens across several streets, define the starting location and mention the full details in description.
- No - this is not OK - the same page says "Don’t promote non-event products or services such as "Trip package: San Diego/LA, 7 nights" as events".
The reason I wouldn't be too concerned about the "no" side is that I think it is reasonable to read that as being about things like flights where the point is getting to the destination rather than things like cruises which are arguably events in their own right.
Good luck!
-
Thanks for sharing this information. Its helpful, thank you

-
I honestly think if you're going to pick one of the two (though neither is quite right), event makes much more sense than product does. It's not like someone is physically buying the actual cruise ship, instead they're paying to spend 'time' at a 'venue', the venue just happens to be mobile instead of stationary
Someone else went on a similar journey of discovery in 2017, here: https://www.webmasterworld.com/html/4844938.htm
... kind of interesting. It highlighted that Ticket schema might be one possible option: https://schema.org/Ticket. There are actually lots of references to "ticket" within Google's event schema documentation: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/event (ctrl+F for "ticket")
Apparently lots of cruise operators do use event schema, never heard of any of them using product schema
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I add FAQS schema on my homepage?
Hello, can we have the FAQ code on the homepage (staff time)? we have written some questions and answers in the drop-down list on the homepage, and also add the schema code script to one tag of the page, but it does not work!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fbowable0 -
How to update Schema markup code to all pages of my website ?
Hi all i have a website with 1k+ pages and i have schema markup code for reviews and FAQ's, so need help in knowing how to update code for all pages in one go without using tag manager as updating to all pages manually is similar to impossible, let me know is there any way out to achieve the results and my website is built on word-press, awaiting for earliest reply......... Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atiagr1232 -
Can Google Crawl & Index my Schema in CSR JavaScript
We currently only have one option for implementing our Schema. It is populated in the JSON which is rendered by JavaScript on the CLIENT side. I've heard tons of mixed reviews about if this will work or not. So, does anyone know for sure if this will or will not work. Also, how can I build a test to see if it does or does not work?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MJTrevens0 -
Need a layman's definition/analogy of the difference between schema and structured data
I'm currently writing a blog post about schema. However I want to set the record straight that schema is not exactly the same as structured data, although both are often used interchangeably. I understand this schema.org is a vocabulary of global identifiers for properties and things. Structured data is what Google officially stated as "a standard way to annotate your content so machines can understand it..." Does anybody know of a good analogy to compare the two? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Can you apply schema to a newsletter signup link?
I was curious if it is possible to markup a newsletter signup link for a client. If yes, what schema property should I use? https://schema.org/Action?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Should we 301 redirect old events pages on a website?
We have a client that has an events category section that is filled to the brim with past events webpages. Another issue is that these old events webpages all contain duplicate meta description tags, so we are concerned that Google might be penalizing our client's website for this issue. Our client does not want to create specialized meta description tags for these old events pages. Would it be a good idea to 301 redirect these old events landing pages to the main events category page to pass off link equity & remove the duplicate meta description tag issue? This seems drastic (we even noticed that searchmarketingexpo.com is keeping their old events pages). However it seems like these old events webpages offer little value to our website visitors. Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
When to Use Schema vs. Facebook Open Graph?
I have a client who for regulatory reasons cannot engage in any social media: no Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ accounts. No social sharing buttons allowed on the site. The industry is medical devices. We are in the process of redesigning their site, and would like to include structured markup wherever possible. For example, there are lots of schema types under MedicalEntity: http://schema.org/MedicalEntity Given their lack of social media (and no plans to ever use it), does it make sense to incorporate OG tags at all? Or should we stick exclusively to the schemas documented on schema.org?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Allie_Williams0 -
Schema.org on Youtube iframe embed?
So I've tried scouring the internet on the proper way to markup youtube videos. I know there's the VideoObject propery but that seems to be more made for the old school embed code that looks like this: <embed width="100%" id="video-player-flash" height="100%" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://s.ytimg.com/yt/swfbin/watch_as3-vflpp9opi.swf" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" bgcolor="#000000" flashvars="el=embedded&fexp=904001%2C914057%2C918000%2C910206%2C907217%2C907335%2C921602%2C919306%2C922600%2C919316%2C920704%2C912804%2C913542%2C919324%2C912706&is_html5_mobile_device=false&tabsb=1&hl=en_US&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dial800.com%2Fblog%2Fvideos%2Fdial800-product-overview-video&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fi4.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fgk1aD9UCKYA%2Fhqdefault.jpg&tspto=12000&probably_logged_in=1&tsp_buffer=10&video_id=gk1aD9UCKYA&tsp_dvrloop=50&sendtmp=1&enablejsapi=1&sk=WZy3rFIXzzhTB_BpmE1p1tTsbxMib1vIC&rel=1&playlist_module=http%3A%2F%2Fs.ytimg.com%2Fyt%2Fswfbin%2Fplaylist_module-vfl3lol2H.swf&jsapicallback=ytPlayerOnYouTubePlayerReady&playerapiid=player1&framer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dial800.com%2Fblog%2Fvideos%2Fdial800-product-overview-video"> Do I need to use that code or is it possible to mark it up using just the clean iframe src that youtube provides now?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SirSud0