Are You Working The RDFa Framework Into Your SEO Campaigns? [Archive]

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morestar

01-19-2010, 01:26 PM

Since I was introduced to the RDFa framework just over a month ago by the Mysterious Mr. Webnauts I've been nothing but exited about the framework and how it can enhance the search results for ourselves and our (us SEOs) clients' websites.

There are a lot of people who still have very little knowledge that the RDFa framework exists and believe SEO hasn't changed much but it has.

Now under certain conditions and with certain search strings on both Google and Yahoo we can find instances where the RDFa framework integrated within a website can enhance their listing in the search results.

This page on AListApart.com gives a little introduction into the RDFa framework (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/introduction-to-rdfa/) and shows how the search results can be enhanced by it's usage/implementation.

Are you familliar with the RDFa framework? Are you an SEO who has been integrating RDFa into your website documents - for yourself or your clients?

As I mentioned before: although some people feel it's useless to get into the RDFa and SEO (http://webbackplane.com/mark-birbeck/blog/2009/12/rdfa-and-seo) all I can respond with is that Google and Yahoo are now displaying data in the search results from websites that do have RDFa integrated into their code and if a client asks us to have their listings in the search results show this information/data then we as SEOs need to take the RDFa seriously as I'm sure the question will arise one day, one way or another in time.

:o

morestar

01-19-2010, 01:38 PM

Ya it's been hard to find as there are only a few sites out there right now offering RDFa primers...but by the end of 2010 I'm sure there's going to be a flood of information about it.

I'm still wondering how the RDFa framework hasn't gotten the attention that it seems it should have seeing that both Yahoo and Google are working it into their search results now.

chandrika

01-19-2010, 04:30 PM

alistapart.com ...i seem to remember that site as being where the holy grail of css layouts was at...

Anyway, thats really interesting article, i like the repeated
"RDFa: Now everyone can have an API"
in the examples, that is quite a good point.

btw part 2 of this article is at
A List Apart: Articles: Introduction to RDFa II (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/introduction-to-rdfa-ii/)
and it goes on to say how to add properties to an image and metadata to any item.

I need to read some more as so far i am seeing in the examples alot of labels about authors and date created, but i want to know what other labels can be put on sections of content, i saw in the rich snippet example pic from google that they had the number of reviews of a product on a page, so i guess each review had an rdfa label @review or something and i am trying to understand how do they mark that up, can you create your own "@whatever" that can be assigned wherever necessary in your content, then later collated however for use elsewhere, or is their a list of already created labels that can be used only?

morestar

01-19-2010, 04:32 PM

chandrika

01-19-2010, 04:38 PM

Yes I was thinking that, about the possibilities of how it can be used to pull together info from a site or sites in ways that could make useful little applications... @also still studying but i also was thinking along those lines.

morestar

01-19-2010, 04:42 PM

Yes basically other applications and so forth won't have to guess at the data they are gathering.

For instance with the star ratings on Google and Yahoo...both those engines have no doubt that the information behind those tags are specifically related to product ratings and so they have no worries about displaying that (important) data...

It clears everything up from a machine point of view.

chandrika

01-19-2010, 04:56 PM

It would seem to involve external apps needing to trust a site owners labels to some extent, i would imagine a site has to be quite trusted before say google would be using their rich snippet data.

I can see benefits for myself turning my site content into an api to use myself, but would i trust another sites labelling....not sure..same problem with meta data where keywords and descripton were put and now SE say they take little notice as such meta data was so abused...

How are external apps going to know what to trust?

Dinghus

01-19-2010, 06:34 PM

Good point about trust. I could flood my site with these little snippets saying one thing when the site is actually about something else. How would a spider or any other machine really know?

morestar

01-19-2010, 06:57 PM

Yes very good point and this is something I definitely have to figure out.

I know one thing: most normal/legitimate sites wouldn't add false data and why would they when they would want (for instance) their search results to display these little data snippets?

However there must be something somehow that verifies the data.

I do know that there are validation services through W3C - the same page validation services we generally use to validate XML/CSS but...that doesn't verify the data.

Good question and this is a must to figure out...stay tuned...

Dinghus

01-19-2010, 07:16 PM

And since when has the internet/seo been dominated by "normal/legitimate" sites? lol

morestar

01-19-2010, 07:19 PM

OK I'm seeing something on this page about security and trust (http://rdfa.info/wiki/Security-and-trust) related to RDFa and security signatures. I'm not too sure if this is the approach but the answer might be along these lines...

morestar

01-19-2010, 07:28 PM

And since when has the internet/seo been dominated by "normal/legitimate" sites? lol

Did I say that?

inertia

01-19-2010, 07:40 PM

Microformats are another option when considering semantic markup: Microformats | About Microformats (http://microformats.org/about). Here's a good read on the differences: RDFa vs microformats from Evan Prodromou (http://evan.prodromou.name/RDFa_vs_microformats).

I've been implementing Microformats on sites for a while, but both markups still have some way to go and so far, are limited in their execution. However, as SEOs it is essential that we are aware of anything which can alter a SERP snippet.

WhitneySegura

01-19-2010, 07:52 PM

I'm still wondering how the RDFa framework hasn't gotten the attention that it seems it should have seeing that both Yahoo and Google are working it into their search results now.

I think that the answer to that people don't want to learn something that looks hard or difficult to understand, rather they would go out and buy "Bobs Million Dollar Internet Secrets"

That's probably a good reason.

Terry Van Horne

01-19-2010, 08:24 PM

Haven't posted in while but this was kinda interesting thread. Google's Rich snippets are about the only implementation of RDFa/microformats etc. What is important to consider is that these are machine readable laguages. I've seen mentions of "machine readable languages" in recent patent applications. There are definite advantages to these in determining geo info, relationships in Social Networks and identification like rel="me" or rel="friend" and rel="payment" which could have interesting uses. Googles FriendConnect would be another example of SE's using these so you can see it a trend but not one I'm looking to re-write a shopping cart, that said... if I was redesigning or reworking a cart... might consider it...

Terry Van Horne

01-19-2010, 08:27 PM

I know one thing: most normal/legitimate sites wouldn't add false data and why would they when they would want (for instance) their search results to display these little data snippets?Why do they spam Realtime Search? cuz they can! Don't need any more reason than that.

morestar

01-19-2010, 08:36 PM

I mean, why would Nike flood snippets with "sex toys"

Why would a sex toys company flood snippets with "nike shoes"

It won't happen.

If you do a search for reviews on "sex toys" you're not going to find adidas spamming those results.

Terry Van Horne

01-19-2010, 09:33 PM

How bout the likely thousands of small sites selling adidas... affiliates... geez why must we use unrealistic examples? Thjere are major dollars at stake many people check their morals/ethics at the door besides it is Biz so...

morestar

01-19-2010, 10:28 PM

Either way, we'll find the answer to this question...I simply can't see the framework getting so much play without some measures taken to make sure it isn't abused...some sort of validation...it'll come...

mjtaylor

01-20-2010, 05:58 AM

I think the post is excellent; thanks for bringing this to the attention of the forum. I am still looking for the real life application for my tourism related client base. Setting a location, of course. I haven't read deeply enough how to apply that.

And, as inertia says, anything that affects SERP snippets is of interest to SEO.

Morestar, I would add rep points, but I have to spread some around first.

wdillsmith

01-20-2010, 08:57 AM

I believe there is a library for each @ - here are some examples of RDFa usage (http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=123cdceceae3f243&hl=en) and here's the W3C RDFa Primer page (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/)...

With respect to the star ratings, that alone is enough for us to take this seriously as eventually our clients will be noticing these little changes and will be asking us how we can get their listings to display those elements.

Remember though, RDFa isn't only for search engines. It's a way to tell machines exactly what the data is about/related to so it can be used across many different platforms. ( I think I got that right - still studying)...

Yes, I have actually seen those star ratings myself and was trying to figure out where they came from and how to get them added to my product page search results. I looked over those two articles and I found the info about Yahoo's search monkey:

SearchMonkey - YDN (http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/)

Not sure how much time to spend with a company whose search results are going away shortly, but the RDFa approach there might get picked up by MSN.

chandrika

01-20-2010, 07:26 PM

I suppose validation for rdfa markups might involve the TrustRank
Google Trust Rank Patent Granted (http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=3015)

Tarzan2

01-21-2010, 09:58 PM

Yes, I have actually seen those star ratings myself and was trying to figure out where they came from.

If you have a Google account, you can sign in to review businesses and add to their star ranking.

The ability to review a business is automatically added by Google when you sign up for a business listing.

inertia

01-21-2010, 10:55 PM

If you have a Google account, you can sign in to review businesses and add to their star ranking.

The ability to review a business is automatically added by Google when you sign up for a business listing.

Thats nothing to do with the star ratings you see in the SERPs. Thats a Google Maps and Local Business thing. Nothing to do with the reviews youre seeing in the SERPs.

Tarzan2

01-22-2010, 12:27 AM

Thats nothing to do with the star ratings you see in the SERPs. Thats a Google Maps and Local Business thing. Nothing to do with the reviews youre seeing in the SERPs.

Woops! I guess I'm falling behind again! Now I'm curious as to what this new thing really is then.

dangdatkat

01-22-2010, 10:49 AM

The about tag just seems like an additional place to jam keywords (<a about="this product">Review</a>. I'd like to see code implementation on a larger site.

Does anyone have a list of libraries? I think the one mentioned in the article from the original post is "Dublin Content". I would like to see a library for e-commerce.

I've looked at the mircoformat hcard for addresses but I don't know how useful this is.

morestar

01-22-2010, 11:59 AM

This site has a good list of the RDFa usages:
Customer Paradigm - RDFa Microformatting Tagging Service For Your Website (http://www.customerparadigm.com/index/503/RDFa-Tagging-Services.php)

dangdatkat

01-23-2010, 08:00 AM

morestar

01-23-2010, 10:52 AM

Here's an announcement by Google about how they've added more Rich Snippets (RDFa) to their search results related to Events (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-new-rich-snippets-format.html)...

morestar

01-23-2010, 11:17 AM

I think I'm going to implement Yahoo Searchmonkey RDFa framework. They have a large variety of different vocabularies.

Product
Video
Discussion
Local
Events
Games
News
Documents

Does anyone know the effectiveness and if it helps rankings?

Sweet: Appendix*B.*SearchMonkey vocabularies (http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/smguide/profile_vocab.html)

inertia

01-23-2010, 02:46 PM

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Introducing a new Rich Snippets format: Events (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-new-rich-snippets-format.html) - Some further changes to Google serps that relate to this topic.

Tried to post this last night but WPW was doing some crazy stuff and kept producing db errors and then redirected to dupedb.com? What as that about?!

Webnauts

01-23-2010, 05:29 PM

Sweet: Appendix*B.*SearchMonkey vocabularies (http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/smguide/profile_vocab.html)

A comment from Mysterious Mr. Webnauts:

Until beginning of this month I am sure that no search engine supported DC (Dublin Core) meta data. If Yahoo suddenly does, then that would be new to me. But for sure Google doesn't.

Just to avoid any misunderstandings.

And it is great that this topic became interesting here at WPW. It is never too late. :)

Webnauts

01-24-2010, 06:58 PM

I feel that is very necessary to make something clear here:

I first attempted to bring up the XHTML+RDFa markup here at WebProWorld on the 26th of October 2008: http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/67639-microformats-search-engine-optimization-sumo-parser.html#post400095

And I changed the markup of my web site SEOWorkers.com from XHTML Strict 1.0 to XHTML+RDFa in November 2008, one month after XHTML+RDFa became an official recommendation by W3C.

I mentioned here at WPW about my implementations and other tips here:

1. http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/72596-role-meta-title-tag-search-engine-optimization.html#post401466 (11-07-2008, 07:57 AM)

2. http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/74018-change-not-change-question.html#post402560 (11-15-2008, 01:08 AM)

3. http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/74382-bots-having-trouble-reading-nested-tables.html#post404343 (11-27-2008, 12:55 AM)

4. http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/74986-internal-external-links-rel-nofollow-attribute.html#post409512 (12-28-2008, 10:43 PM)

5. http://www.webproworld.com/web-programming-discussion-forum/71592-w3c-its-relevance-advanced-web-design-technology.html#post416573 (01-31-2009, 05:55 AM)

6. http://www.webproworld.com/submit-your-site-review/85304-i-redesigned-my-blog-www-seowatchblog-com.html#post442058 (06-02-2009, 05:28 AM)

7. http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/85987-google-local-listing-search-engine-optimization.html#post446645 (06-23-2009, 01:54 AM)

8. http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/93018-isnt-pagerank-important.html#post473612 (10-24-2009, 02:24 AM)

9. http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/89745-search-engine-optimization-should-dead-2.html#post460254 (08-25-2009, 06:31 AM) - Excellent read!

I love the post of the moderator Weegillis: http://www.webproworld.com/google-discussion-forum/93230-rich-snippet-testing-tool.html#post474061

DO YOU NEED MORE?

Whats else? Google began mentioning something about this technology in May 2009.

In the meantime I tried occasionally to refresh the topic in the forums, but I was always turned down from different SEO members, claiming that it is useless and will never work. One example you can find here: http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/96400-rel-next-href-psge-2-html-why-would-browser-read-tag.html#post486444 and http://www.webproworld.com/submit-your-site-review/85304-i-redesigned-my-blog-www-seowatchblog-com.html#post442065

I hope after all that everyone will understand what the whole concept is about and rethink if it makes sense or not.

Oh and by the way I was just reading these ancient for me news: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/22/a-markup-that-could-have-big-implications-for-seo

And MJ, it is very strange that I did not ever got rep points for that. Don't you think? :lol:

Take care,

Mysterious Mr. Webnauts.

watto

01-24-2010, 07:38 PM

Nice post Webnauts!

I have only ever seen you post a comment or thread when you were 100% sure it was fact. There is no guess work or assumptions when you are kind enough to give all 'want to be' SEO's a tip.

I recently took this advice on board and converted my site to RDFa. I also asked for some feedback but no one was willing to comment of the validation. http://www.webproworld.com/submit-your-site-review/96442-business-trader-rdfa.html#post486550

Good work buddy!

watto

dangdatkat

01-25-2010, 08:33 AM

Webnauts, Watto,

After you converted your site, have you seen a difference in the way your site is displayed on SERPs?

morestar

01-25-2010, 10:23 AM

Webnauts, Watto,

After you converted your site, have you seen a difference in the way your site is displayed on SERPs?

As of yet I'm not even sure of what type of search strings would need to be entered into a search box to display such data.

As you can see from this search: cnet, ipod (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enCA267CA267&q=cnet%2C+ipod&aq=f&aql=&aqi=g10&oq=) that for starters the listing with the rich snippets aren't even the first result (not where I sitting). That's not the point (yet) of RDFa. The benefits of RDFa/Rich Snippets form an SEO perspective is the increase of click-through rates.

Here is another search "best buy, ipod (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enCA267CA267&ei=frZdS4npC4viNbWT_YoP&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAYQBSgA&q=best+buy,+ipod&spell=1)"

You will also notice the rich snippets being displayed in those search results as well.

It seems at this time that Google and Yahoo are only displaying rich snippets in the form of reviews or information about products but that doesn't mean you don't start working RDFa into your code.

As time passes we're going to see rich snippets in the search results for various other searches, events, reviews, movie show-times, contact information, image license information and so forth.

Your best bet as an SEO is to get on it now so when the search engines start supporting the other RDFa libraries you'll be ahead of the game.

;)

inertia

01-25-2010, 04:09 PM

The benefits of RDFa/Rich Snippets/(& Microformatting) form an SEO perspective is the increase of click-through rates.Exactly. It's all about the snippets man! In a technical (not job description) sense SEO is about search engine rankings. So we improve the rankings, ensure they will work for the site and make them look appealing. But I don't need to tell you that!! The whole "SEO is dead (http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/89745-search-engine-optimization-should-dead.html)" argument is getting squashed even more with these developments. This is something which is right in the SEOs territory, and not that of the developer, designer or marketing manager.

As time passes we're going to see rich snippets in the search results for various other searches, events, reviewsWere already seeing plenty of review snippets: marriott hotel in london - Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENGB264&ei=bAReS_WrIo-OlAf9xonsBA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAgQBSgA&q=marriott+hotel+in+london&spell=1).

For the people like John who've implemented RDFa, it doesnt matter if he hasnt seen an improvement in traffic or rankings from it:

Please note, however, that marking up your content is not a guarantee that Rich Snippets will show for your site. Just as we did for previous formats, we will take a gradual approach to incorporating the new event snippets to ensure a great user experience along the way.

It pays to be ahead of the game.

watto

01-26-2010, 06:22 AM

Dangdatkat: To early to see any results yet as the serps are not displaying review snippets as yet.

Inertia: Nice post and I couldn't agree more.

watto

dangdatkat

01-26-2010, 10:03 AM

So it looks like:

Cnet & Amazon have incorporated RDFa for e-comm products.

Yelp & TripAdvisor for locations and reviews.

morestar

03-21-2010, 02:51 PM

Webnauts

03-21-2010, 02:55 PM

I'm beginning to see quite a bit of new information coming out here and there regarding RDFa and richsnippets...I've even created a few new sites in RDFa and revised some old ones but haven't seen any benefits as of yet in the search results.

Here's an example of what can be had via the rich snippets testing tool:
Webmaster Tools - Rich Snippets Testing Tool (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/hcard)
Google does not tolerate errors and warnings in rich snippets. I saw warnings in red. And there are more requirements and techniques to increase the chances to get them visible in the search results.

Good luck.

morestar

03-21-2010, 02:59 PM

Webnauts

03-21-2010, 03:07 PM

Yes but getting what visible? For instance at this time one of my sites validates to RDFa AND is using hcard for microformats in the address copy of the site.

I'm presuming if someone does a search for the company address this information should eventually be displayed in the results...but I'm not sure yet...

Exactly. Eventually can be displayed in the SERPS. If you already went through the required process and in association with several other factors.

But I am sure, other experts here can help you out with those.

And again, the test page you showed above has warnings in the RDFa code.

Some further info about that: Google Rich Snippets Tips and Tricks - a collection by Google Rich Snippets (http://knol.google.com/k/google-rich-snippets-tips-and-tricks#Frequently_Asked_Questions)

Good luck man.

morestar

03-21-2010, 03:20 PM

Yes the richsnippet example I found had 3 errors in it but quite a bit of information that was valid.

Here's a correctly formated example:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCard%23Live_example

But unfortunately this example didn't have sufficient data to generate a preview as the other example I posted did (under the Google search preview heading) which was the point I was trying to drive home. I've yet to see that type of example anywhere in the search results...

"Note that there is no guarantee that a Rich Snippet will be shown for this page on actual search results."

Till then...

Webnauts

03-21-2010, 04:03 PM

"Note that there is no guarantee that a Rich Snippet will be shown for this page on actual search results."
That is what I meant. As I said, there are techniques that can increase the chances to be shown in the SERPs, not just coding RDFa properly.

full house

03-21-2010, 10:13 PM

exactly, Matt didn't mention anything about that if it rank maybe you did a good job in some SEO part but not un RDF alone.

Webnauts

03-21-2010, 10:45 PM

exactly, Matt didn't mention anything about that if it rank maybe you did a good job in some SEO part but not un RDF alone.
Can you tell us here when did Matt mention anything about RDFa and I that I missed?

kgun

06-10-2010, 09:57 AM

I have known about it for some years, but never used it. There are some related threads that I will like to mention. If John (Webnauts) find them too annoying, make him moderator again. He once was. So here are the links:

Semantic link discussion. (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/101765-Semantic-Link-Discussion?p=515907&viewfull=1#post515907)
Dublin Core Metadata - is there a reason to have it? (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/100902-Dublin-Core-Metadata-is-there-a-reason-to-have-it?p=509949&viewfull=1#post509949)
Microformats SEO and the Sumo parser. (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/66701-Microformats-SEO-and-the-Sumo-parser.?p=365236&viewfull=1#post365236)

I once saw a good video about the subject that I can not find now. As far as I remember, RDF was illustrated as a layer above html tags.

mjtaylor

06-10-2010, 10:09 AM

Excellent. More links that bear on this topic:

Exploring the Semantic Web (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/101296-Exploring-The-Semantic-Web-and-Its-Impact-on-SEO?highlight=rich+snippets)

Have Rich Snippets Made Anyone Rich? (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/101297-Have-Rich-Snippets-Made-Anyone-Rich?highlight=rich+snippets)

Google Expands Rich Snippet Support Internationally (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/100843-Google-Expands-Rich-Snippet-Support-Internationally?highlight=rich+snippets)