Google Search now indexing live streams via structured data and an indexing API

Google this week introduced new tools to index live streams and to help more people to discover live streams in Google Search and in Google Assistant.

To index live streams, Google is using structured data. When a video is live, publishers can let Google know about the live streams through the structured data and via the indexing API. The video will be eligible to appear with a red "live" badge on Google Search.

Publishers can flag a live video as broadcast and mark the start and end times. In addition, VideoObject structured data is required to tell Google that there's a video on your page.

The Indexing API now supports pages with live stream structured data. Google says publishers need to call the Indexing API to request that the site is crawled in time for the live stream. Google recommends calling the Indexing API when the live stream begins and ends, and if the structured data changes.