Google has introduced support for a structured data property for Videos called, regionsAllowed. The structured data property allows a publisher to tell Google that a video is specific to a region.
regionsAllowed Structured Data Property
A structured data property is a way to tell a search engine what the attributes and relationships are of a thing.
This new structured data property is a part of the VideoObject structured data type.
A structured data TYPE is a way to label what type of information is being communicated.
So, with with the VideoObject structured data type, we are telling the search engines that this structured data script is about a Video.
Screenshot of Video Rich Results in Images and Discover
The regionsAllowed structured data property is meant to define what regions a video is meant for. A search engine can use that information, for example, to limit what regions to show a rich result about a particular video.
Screenshot of Video Rich Results in regular Search and in Google Discover
The regionsAllowed structured data property affects these kinds of search results:
- Organic search results
- Video search results
- Google images
- Google discover
How Schema.org Defines regionsAllowed Structured Data Property
This is how the regionsAllowed structured data property is defined by Schema.org:
“The regions where the media is allowed. If not specified, then it’s assumed to be allowed everywhere. Specify the countries in ISO 3166 format.”
How Google Defines regionsAllowed Structured Data
Google’s definition of regionsAllowed structured data is similar to the one provided by Schema.org:
“The regions where the video is allowed. If not specified, then Google assumes the video is allowed everywhere. Specify the countries in ISO 3166 format”
Is regionsAllowed Structured Data Required?
There are two kinds of structured data properties for the purposes of rich results like featured snippets.
- Required properties
- Recommended properties
Required properties are absolutely necessary.
Recommended properties should only be used if it is appropriate.
regionsAllowed is a “recommended property.” That means you don’t need to use it unless there is an actual reason for it.
The VideoObject structured data will still validate whether you use the regionsAllowed property or not.
When to Use regionsAllowed Structured Data
Only use the regionsAllowed property if you want to limit the regions where a rich result might be shown.
For example, if you have different videos for different regions, then you can label each video with a different region.
If it doesn’t matter what country the video is for then don’t use the regionsAllowed structured data.
How to Use regionsAllowed Structured Data
The way to add a regionsAllowed property is to just drop it in to the end of existing code like this:
}, "regionsAllowed": "US" } </script>
The above code is for the United States region.
This is what it looks like for the United Kingdom region (GB):
}, "regionsAllowed": "GB" } </script>
Those two letter country abbreviations are the ISO 3166 country codes that Schema.org and Google recommends to use.
regionsAllowed is a Useful Addition to Video Structured Data
The new support for the regionsAllowed property will be useful to publishers who want to control how videos display in search results and rich results around the world.
This gives publishers more control in how Google uses their data.
Citations
Google VideoObjects Structured Data Developers Page
List of ISO 3166 Country Codes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes
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