Google announced they are sun-setting data-vocabulary.org structured data. Beginning in April 2020, structured data using data-vocabulary.org microdata will not be eligible for rich results.
All sites still using data-vocabulary.org structured data should begin moving to Schema.org structured data.
Related: What Is Schema Markup & Why It’s Important for SEO
What is data-vocabulary.org?
Data-Vocabulary.org Structured Data is Google’s implementation of structured data introduced in 2009. It was superceded by Schema.org structured data two years later in 2011.
Schema.org structured data is an open source structured data that Google and other organizations supported. In 2011 Google updated the Data-Vocabulary.org site to add links to other pages to encourage the move to schema.org structured data.
Despite that, Google continued to support their version of structured data until today’s announcement.
Change Affects Rich Results
This is how Google’s announcement explained the change:
“As of April 6, 2020, data-vocabulary.org markup will no longer be eligible for Google rich result features.”
Google further announced that they will be sending notices to publishers who still use the old system.
Lessons Learned
Always keep your structured data up to date with whatever Google states is their preferred version. JSON-LD structured data is Google’s preferred version.
One can put it off until it’s too late but at that point a publisher is under a deadline.
Now is the time to prioritize changing structured data to schema.org. If it’s within your resources updating to JSON-LD Schema.org structured data format is the preferred option because it is widely used and is the accepted standard.
Read Google’s announcement here: Sunsetting Support for Data-Vocabulary
Related: Just How Important Is Structured Data in SEO?