Schema.org

[theindiaphile]

Schema.org is obviously going to be huge in SEO terms. Anyone using it yet to incorporate into their coding with results?

 

[EvilPlankton]

I spent time putting the microdata in place and testing it with the tools Google provides, however, there isn't much support built in right now.

I still don't see "rich" search results for my data in Google. According to the FAQ:

"Google currently supports rich snippets for people, events, reviews, products, recipes, and breadcrumb navigation,"

As for SEO impact, I can't comment because I launched with microdata in place.

 

[theindiaphile]

Evil, I can see you're on the case, big time. Personally iIm learning as much as I can about this and making sure I'm right alongside you, because this is going to be massive, and will come to dominate SEO over the next few years, I think...

 

[toomz]

In my opinion Schema.org will definitely become the new standard for semantically marking up website content with microdata and it will eventually replace microformats and RDFa, that were used before schema.org came out.

After studying SERPS, I can tell you that at the moment rich snippets hardly make any impact in rankings. The only real benefit you may see is increased CTR in SERPS because of all the snippets added next to the URLs.

Now goes the fun part. If you want rich snippets to appear next to your site in the SERPS, after marking up your content you have to:

1. Test it with rich snippets testing tool - google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
2. Get your site whitelisted, in other words manually approved by the google team. Contacting them might or might not help - google.com/support/webmasters/bin/request.py?contact_type=rich_snippets_feedback

The problem is that currently google won't display rich snippets without approval, no matter that their support docs don't mention this fact. So there's really no way to get through with shitty sites or one-pagers designed just for affiliate stuff.

To sum up, I have yet to see a BH site successfully using microdata, schema.org to be specific. If you have a clean WH site that has content related to the categories EvilPlankton mentioned, go ahead, try it, it won't make any harm. You even might get approved

P.S. Only the big players (imdb, ebay etc.) currently use schema.org vocabulary successfully. For whatever reason, smaller sites are being ignored by google and rich snippets don't show up if marked up by schema.org microdata. This is why some people still prefer microformats. Only time will tell I guess

P.P.S. Sorry for my crappy english.

 

[theforceof1]

i have read a lot about it but never tried it. but i hope some day i 'll when i see that the site is not up to standard.

 

[GlobalP]

This is some good stuff. I have some white hat sites that might actually benefit from this. Thanks given.

 

[theindiaphile]

Rep given toomz, that's some good info. There'll be many many more schema threads before long I warrant...

 

[pyronaut]

I actually don't think Schema.org will be successful. And the reason is because they are predefining fields. When Schema.org first got released, there were many many posts comparing it to ... I've forgotten the name of this one, but the other microdata format. And the biggest thing that came up in every post was that Scheme.org defining the microdata, and not allowing you to add your own is going to make the documentation absolutely massive.

 

[Bizmarkie40]

I just saw a WSO about some word press plug in that addresses this micro data issue. If anyone else gets those WSOs and I am sure most of you do, I would appreciate it if you could comment on your thoughts. Is this something we might need going forward? I cannot remember If I am allowed to post links to the WF here so for now I will assume you have seen what I am talking about. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Mark

 

[Bizmarkie40]

I actually don't think Schema.org will be successful. And the reason is because they are predefining fields. When Schema.org first got released, there were many many posts comparing it to ... I've forgotten the name of this one, but the other microdata format. And the biggest thing that came up in every post was that Scheme.org defining the microdata, and not allowing you to add your own is going to make the documentation absolutely massive.

A friend of mine and I were looking for google articles about this. Did not find a lot of information. Anyone have additional info on this?

 

[daveguy]

I used to work for one of the biggest SEO companies in the States. Schema.org is going to be huge in the coming years. Not much benefit now, but you should all get your schema microdata set up and attached to your Google +1 account as soon as you can. If you are a blog owner - it would be a good idea to connect your blog posts to your +1 profile. You should also have some markup for the +1 sharing snippet. Make sure your keyword in the Title of whatever you want people to see when someone shares your page.

Kinda like Twitter - if someone shares your post on Google +1 and then someone else popular in the industry comments on that share or re-shares it - that's going to be a huge vote (like a link single) to Google that that piece of content is good shit.

 

[Winchester]

Schema.org won't be huge just like pyronaut said. However, what will be important is the microdata and how google uses it (notice how rich media always pops up in your first few results?) I made a detailed jr vip post about this http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/junior-vip-zone/383318-exploit-google-rich-snippets-audio-guide.html if you have the access then I suggest you read it. Will certainly be more and more valuable in the future as Google pushes for more rich data snippets

 

[ramanacore]

I actually don't think Schema.org will be successful. And the reason is because they are predefining fields. When Schema.org first got released, there were many many posts comparing it to ... I've forgotten the name of this one, but the other microdata format. And the biggest thing that came up in every post was that Scheme.org defining the microdata, and not allowing you to add your own is going to make the documentation absolutely massive.

Without controlled vocabulary semantic data are worthless outside of your own environment. The point of schema.org is not to define the schema of microdata (lots of ontologies are available already) but to define schema of microdata within HTML, instead of using other approaches such as embedding RDF. This is slightly different story.

That said, microdata are the future - in whatever form. Google is already showing its own ratings of products (in a similar way it shows them for businesses) below addresses of web pages if these pages have embedded microdata (tested on my own site). You may start to think about making money from managing online reputation for products, not only bussinesses.

 

[Winchester]

Controlled vocab for semantic data is already out there! Google supports 3 different standards, Schema.org is nothing new in that sense.

 

[ramanacore]

Controlled vocab for semantic data is already out there! Google supports 3 different standards, Schema.org is nothing new in that sense.

Vocabullary is there, but not necessarily controlled. Microformats for example do not have a standards body. To be clear - schema.org is not such a body either.

Anyway, idea is not new - technology is new and involvement of major search engines is new as well.

 

[daveguy]

I'm telling you - schema.org is the one to go with. Take it or leave it.

 

[manny521]

My site is marked up with rich snippets (schema.org) and five stars are displayed in my organic search results for my keywords.

You do have to submit your site for approval and to tell you the truth I wasn't expecting to have google approve it as rich snippets are really reserved for sites like ebay and other big sites who sell a million different products, like amazon.

It took about 2 weeks for google to approve my site. While I was waiting for the approval, I started reading on a number of forums about rich snippets and everyone on the forums were moaning about how impossible it is to get the rich snippets displayed, so I didn't really expect to see much.

Then they were approved!

Rich snippets do NOT help you move up in the search results (at least not in my experience, I could be wrong, but I have not seen this), but they do dramatically increase your click through rate.

Your organic results stick out like a sore thumb and the user cannot resist not clicking on the link.

To tell you the truth, I don't know why google approved my rich snippets b/c I don't sell a million products, only a few, but they did and my click through rate is really high.

There are other advantages that my site had that I don't want to go into. I will say, if your site is an adsense site, rich snippets will not work with your site, you need to be selling a tangible item and you need to have lots of reviews of the product. The reviews are key to getting rich snippets displayed, at least I think, but who the hells knows with google. Its a big black box over there when it comes to the criteria involved.

 

[webmacho]

I think in the near future there will be no need to approve manually google is just tesning now in a few months or at least a year there is going to be auto aproval

 

[WebDev]

I will say, if your site is an adsense site, rich snippets will not work with your site, you need to be selling a tangible item and you need to have lots of reviews of the product.

That's not something the vendors are mentioning!

There are currently wordpress plugins and themes for sale that use microdata to boost your SEO - I'm currently looking into this

e.g. wp-buddy.com/products/themes/schema-corporate-theme/ (anybody got this to share?)