Microformats SEO and the Sumo parser.

[kgun]

1. Motivation.

Microformats give us the opportunity to add more machine-readable semantic value to HTML documents using structures with standardized class names.

So more precisely, what are microformats - Microformats? Microformats are a way of thinking about data, design principles for formats, highly correlated with semantic XHTML, a set of simple open data format standards that a diverse community of individuals and organizations are actively developing and implementing for more/better structured blogging and web microcontent publishing in general and much more. It is a way to write code and markup that a Bot should like and as such have the potential to improve your SE ranking.

2. An example: http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard

hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.


3. Microformats and SEO

How microformats affect search engine optimization ( SEO ) - USWeb Blog - Internet and Search Engine Marketing Blog

"So if you haven’t heard by now there is this new term called microformats spreading like crazy across the net. At first it can seem overly confusing but when digging into the heart of the matter the exact opposite is true. So what are microformats? Microformats are sets of simple data formats built for today’s technology (XHTML mostly) to solve simple problems. To speak in plain English a Microformat in most cases is a set of XHTML code embedded in web pages that provides a structured set of data that can be utilized for other means".

Googling for microformats - Joost de Valk's SEO Blog

"Imagine, you can type in a query like "joost de valk class:vcard" and Google comes up with my contact page, because that has a vcard class in it's markup, the main class of the hCard microformat. This was suggested today on the uf-discuss mailing list, a mailing list I've been lurking on for quite a while now, and it made me go "YES! That's what I want!"."

This is definitely a standard that has the potential to improve the SERP's.

4. SEO tools

SEO Goodies | Tag Cloud tool, SEO Keyword Discovery Tool, SEO Books

5. Dan Webb's Sumo Java Script parser.

Parsing microformats is difficult, but Dan Webb has written one parser:

danwebb.net - Sumo! A Generic Microformats Parser For JavaScript

For more information see:

The*Art*& Science*of JavaScript - SitePoint Books

chapter 5. That is a must read about meta programming in JavaScript and extending JavaScript to a better language with true object oriented features. If you understand that chapter (read, try the code, read again and reread until you understand it), you will be able to write cleaner, more flexible, more optimized and more reuseable Java Script code.

[Webnauts]

Excellent post. I already use microformats on my sites for almost 2 years now.

Can anyone STICK this thread?

[incrediblehelp]

Stuck it for you, well see if it sticks.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Stuck it for you, well see if it sticks.

Great! The post deserves it. Remember my words bro.

Thanks!!!

[crankydave]

Excellent post kgun. I hate to highlight a single sentance of your post, and I don't do it to diminish any of the thoughts or information you provided, but something you said in your first paragraph is very important IMO...

In other ways it is a way to write code and markup that a Bot should like and as such have the potential to improve your SE ranking.

Anytime this is a possibility, not only is the the potential for the benefit to the end user being explored, the potential of utilizing it for "manipulation" is being explored as well.

I ask myself, what benefit does it provide, to whom, why, and is that potential benefit offset by those intent on abusing it creating a whole new set of problems to be addressed. I also ask myself, who is most likely to use it.

Supporting, and using, something internally for ones own benefit when you can "control" what is being provided, is quite different from using it to "shape" the "product" you provide when what is being provided is beyond your control.

My 2 cents...

Dave

[naman]

Well, I'm new with this concept, please let me know the basic advantages of Microformats. Is this really giving any fruit in search engine optimization ?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by onthink

It really worths the time, great!

Can you explain what is worth the time?

[subhzash]

Originally Posted by kgun

1. Motivation.

Microformats give us the opportunity to add more machine-readable semantic value to HTML documents using structures with standardized class names.

So more precisely, what are microformats - Microformats? Microformats are a way of thinking about data, design principles for formats, highly correlated with semantic XHTML, a set of simple open data format standards that a diverse community of individuals and organizations are actively developing and implementing for more/better structured blogging and web microcontent publishing in general and much more. It is a way to write code and markup that a Bot should like and as such have the potential to improve your SE ranking.

2. An example: http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard

hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.


3. Microformats and SEO

How microformats affect search engine optimization ( SEO ) - USWeb Blog - Internet and Search Engine Marketing Blog

"So if you haven’t heard by now there is this new term called microformats spreading like crazy across the net. At first it can seem overly confusing but when digging into the heart of the matter the exact opposite is true. So what are microformats? Microformats are sets of simple data formats built for today’s technology (XHTML mostly) to solve simple problems. To speak in plain English a Microformat in most cases is a set of XHTML code embedded in web pages that provides a structured set of data that can be utilized for other means".

Googling for microformats - Joost de Valk's SEO Blog

"Imagine, you can type in a query like "joost de valk class:vcard" and Google comes up with my contact page, because that has a vcard class in it's markup, the main class of the hCard microformat. This was suggested today on the uf-discuss mailing list, a mailing list I've been lurking on for quite a while now, and it made me go "YES! That's what I want!"."

This is definitely a standard that has the potential to improve the SERP's.

4. SEO tools

SEO Goodies | Tag Cloud tool, SEO Keyword Discovery Tool, SEO Books

5. Dan Webb's Sumo Java Script parser.

Parsing microformats is difficult, but Dan Webb has written one parser:

danwebb.net - Sumo! A Generic Microformats Parser For JavaScript

For more information see:

The*Art*& Science*of JavaScript - SitePoint Books

chapter 5. That is a must read about meta programming in JavaScript and extending JavaScript to a better language with true object oriented features. If you understand that chapter (read, try the code, read again and reread until you understand it), you will be able to write cleaner, more flexible, more optimized and more reuseable Java Script code.

This is good article. But can you tell me by using this can i increase my website search engine rankings??



Regards
Subhzash

[amitgupta007_99]

Excellent post !!!

No matter what, experience makes people better................ur experince speaks...

God bless u and we will bless the world wide web.

Amit P Gupta

Web Strategist and SEO
amitgupta007_99@yahoo.com

[subhzash]

Originally Posted by amitgupta007_99

Excellent post !!!

No matter what, experience makes people better................ur experince speaks...

God bless u and we will bless the world wide web.

Amit P Gupta

Web Strategist and SEO
amitgupta007_99@yahoo.com

Can you tell me what is the use of Microformats in seo point of view??

[edhan]

Nice writeup about microformats SEO. Has anyone got result with this?
Wondering if it is worth doing it for long term effect.

Hope someone who had tested it gives us some views.

[ericajoieake]

I've been using microformat SEO for a couple of months and it really works.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ericajoieake

I've been using microformat SEO for a couple of months and it really works.

Can you please explain how can you tell that they really work/supported? Can you be more specific?

[Seo-optimizer]

do you think it is worth the money and time ??

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Seo-optimizer

do you think it is worth the money and time ??

What do you mean with money and time?

[root123]

SO Microformats happened to be the colosest friend of the mysterious Google Algo........

[Shades]

Nice post, I'm looking into the SEO goodies you attached now. I'm still new and struggling to the world of rankings and need all the help i can get. If you have any other ideas to boost new webpages please let me know.

Thanks

[subhzash]

Originally Posted by kgun

1. Motivation.

Microformats give us the opportunity to add more machine-readable semantic value to HTML documents using structures with standardized class names.

So more precisely, what are microformats - Microformats? Microformats are a way of thinking about data, design principles for formats, highly correlated with semantic XHTML, a set of simple open data format standards that a diverse community of individuals and organizations are actively developing and implementing for more/better structured blogging and web microcontent publishing in general and much more. It is a way to write code and markup that a Bot should like and as such have the potential to improve your SE ranking.

2. An example: http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard

hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.


3. Microformats and SEO

How microformats affect search engine optimization ( SEO ) - USWeb Blog - Internet and Search Engine Marketing Blog

"So if you haven’t heard by now there is this new term called microformats spreading like crazy across the net. At first it can seem overly confusing but when digging into the heart of the matter the exact opposite is true. So what are microformats? Microformats are sets of simple data formats built for today’s technology (XHTML mostly) to solve simple problems. To speak in plain English a Microformat in most cases is a set of XHTML code embedded in web pages that provides a structured set of data that can be utilized for other means".

Googling for microformats - Joost de Valk's SEO Blog

"Imagine, you can type in a query like "joost de valk class:vcard" and Google comes up with my contact page, because that has a vcard class in it's markup, the main class of the hCard microformat. This was suggested today on the uf-discuss mailing list, a mailing list I've been lurking on for quite a while now, and it made me go "YES! That's what I want!"."

This is definitely a standard that has the potential to improve the SERP's.

4. SEO tools

SEO Goodies | Tag Cloud tool, SEO Keyword Discovery Tool, SEO Books

5. Dan Webb's Sumo Java Script parser.

Parsing microformats is difficult, but Dan Webb has written one parser:

danwebb.net - Sumo! A Generic Microformats Parser For JavaScript

For more information see:

The*Art*& Science*of JavaScript - SitePoint Books

chapter 5. That is a must read about meta programming in JavaScript and extending JavaScript to a better language with true object oriented features. If you understand that chapter (read, try the code, read again and reread until you understand it), you will be able to write cleaner, more flexible, more optimized and more reuseable Java Script code.

Information is excellent.

These links not working:

Microformats
microformats - Microformats
hcard - Microformats

Can you please give me some of the resources where i can find complete information about Microformats. I read all the links which are published in your paragraphs


Regards
Subhzash

[kgun]

Originally Posted by subhzash

Information is excellent.

These links not working:

Microformats
microformats - Microformats
hcard - Microformats

Can you please give me some of the resources where i can find complete information about Microformats. I read all the links which are published in your paragraphs


Regards
Subhzash

They are all fine here.

[subhzash]

Microformats are new to me and I am doing extensive research work on it. But i need help from you all.

Can anyone explain me how "hreview" tool at Microformats is useful. You can find that too at this page SEO Goodies | Tag Cloud tool | SEO Keyword Discovery Tool | Free SEO project tools | SEO Work Center | DIY SEO


Thanks in advance for your reply


Regards
Subhzash

[leesw]

The bottom line is that it makes sure what you're doing is SE friendly. The last thing you want is to bust it working on and promoting a website only to find out that it's only partially SE friendly.

[Webnauts]

Kjell if you want to know what SEO is in its full glory, have a look here RDFa Blog Archive Google Tech Talk on RDFa available and here SearchMonkey - YDN , and when you are done, search on my web site for my technical statement, and then you will see why I prefer something more than Microformats.

Enjoy...

P.S. Don't forget to run through the W3C validator any page of my site. It's important too!

[Web Design Company]

Excellent article. It deserves to be made sticky.

[avoir des goûts simples]

Good article but everyone is asking how it works... Me too i have no idea what microformat is... can someone explain this?

[shakir]

M new to it and after reading from

kgun

m really interest and not found any successful story after use it.

[jimmy03]

This is something very new,which i had never read.
Thanks for your sharing this great article.

Microformats are very new which most

I don't think many SEO's are using Microformats.But I will definitely try these for my website.
Thanks
jimmy

[kohc0004]

This is something pretty new to me. Thanks for sharing. Appears need to take some time to digest.

Jerry

[avoir des goûts simples]

Okay well, said guys but what i need to know is how this microformats done?

[tushar123]

Thanks for sharing the information.

[Webnauts]

Kjell again excellent post.

As I mentioned previously I use the Microformats since over two years now and last year I upgarded my web site documents type to XHTML+RDFa, and in addition I added an RDF data file http://www.seoworkers.com/semanticweb.rdf

Was that too fast or too early? Maybe it was. But after all Google announced that they support my work.

Google Announces Support for Microformats and RDFa - O'Reilly Radar

P.S. It is so funny to live and work in the future...

[jeffm2009]

Back to what Dave had said, there is also potential here to scrape contact information, for both malicious and non-malicious purposes. For example, if the use of vcards is widely adopted, you can fairly easily write a program that will scrape/aggregate the vcard info and that data can be used for a variety of purposes like spam.

[Webnauts]

As I probably mentioned before, I upgraded my site to XHTML+RDFa, and today I found the first possibly real advantage: Interested in Rich Snippets? - Webmasters/Site owners Help

I submitted my site and I am looking forward if googles promises are true.

[maneetpuri]

Hi Guys

New to this technology but have heard about it few days back, Is there any relation between Microformats and RDFa formats?

Can any one explain me that is there any strategy or logic behind the implementation of both the things on your site?

What is the use of embedding it into your web page code?

Thanks in advance!

[vblni]

I think both Microformats and RDFa are same. Also XML feeds fall under the same umbrella. Please anyone correct me if I am wrong on this context.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by vblni

I think both Microformats and RDFa are same. Also XML feeds fall under the same umbrella. Please anyone correct me if I am wrong on this context.

My site is coded in XHTML+RDFa so I may use RDFa. If your site is coded in HTML or XHTML you can not use RDFa. You can use instead Microformats.

About Microformats & RDFa: Marking up structured data - Webmasters/Site owners Help

About RDFa: About RDFa - Webmasters/Site owners Help

And here is the one of the wicked stuff about the use of the above: Google's Rich Snippets and the Semantic Web - O'Reilly Radar

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by bryanfuller

I think it give no suitable increase in your SE ranking

And how about the local search?

[Webnauts]

Some updates about using Microformats or RDFa.

Google launched a tool for testing.

Here you can see a sample result from a page of my web site I tested with their tool:

Webmaster Tools - Rich Snippets Testing Tool

If you are implementing Microformats or RDFa on your web site, make sure you are not blocking any bot using the name Fetch or so similar:

This is the info I got from my log files, wondering why couldn't their tool fetch my pages when I was testing with their tool:

72.14.192.66 - - [31/Aug/2009:14:31:07 -0700] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 5294 "-" "PageFetcher-Google-CoOp;"

Good luck!

[Webnauts]

Some great news again, which I could not hold myself back from sharing: Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Supporting Facebook Share and RDFa for videos

Enjoy,

John

[Webnauts]

I believe some members maybe did not understand what the topic is about here, so I thought of sharing here some additional information that every one can understand:

Intro to the sematic web: YouTube - Intro to the Semantic Web

I recommend everyone to check that out.

Enjoy.

[Doc]

Thanks for that link, John. I hadn't fully made the mental connection between the semantic web concept and microformats. It really opens up a lot of possibilities to fine-tune search processes.

Looks like I've got a lot of reading in my future!.

[nichita2008]

This video explain very clear what exactly are microformats and how to use this thing in your advantage. Thank you for the link.

[vblni]

Though it really is a tough task to implement, however, this video helps to understand the in thing. Thanks.

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

And how about the local search?

Using microformats wont improve your rankings, as in your position, but it will improve your listing in the SERPs and make it more concise/attractive by adding extra information.

For me, the most useful microformat specification is hreview (hReview 0.3 Microformats Wiki). Look at this results page: site:tripadvisor.com hotel review - Google Search - see all the review counts and star scores? Thats hreview, a microformat specification thats adds semantic markup to each hotels review. You can see how having that info display in your listing would help click through rates.