Feeds and Microformats – Optimisation beyond the site - Richard Baxter

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MICROFORMATSSAScon – Manchester - 2011

Richard Baxter – SEOgadget.co.uk

What are Microformats, how do they work and what can you do with them?

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YOU’LL RECOGNISE THIS

Businesses and organisations can easily markup their addresses with hCard – there are really only a few key properties in hcard required to do this – here’s the

documentation from Google

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AND THIS…

“Wow – I’m so delighted with my new Dualit toaster – arrived really quickly, too – thanks”

Rated: 5/5

Reviews are among the most popular types of data and they’re growing

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AND, THIS?

Matt CuttsPrincipal EngineerGoogle Inc

+1 650-253-0000matt.cutts@google.com

You can mark up information in a webpage about a person using hcard, too. The additional attributes defined by the XFN properties (friend, contact and acquaintance) can be

included, too.

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AND THIS?

Om nom nom

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THE PROBLEM WITH INFORMATION

VenueCountry

Post Code

Name

Even the most advanced information retrieval techniques can do with a hand recognising data

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MICROFORMATS

Microformats, RDFa and Microdata all attempt to achieve the same goal – adding structure to data found on the web

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REVIEWS

Oh? Implement hreview – just don’t expect anything to happen with your retail site for now. Use the reviews attributes in your Google product feed

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AT LEAST WE HAVE CAKE

*May not be “Best Ever” banana cake – my girlfriend’s banana cake is the best, and she says it’s all about Nigella Lawson

...............................................................................................................................................................................................<div class="hrecipe">

<h2 class="fn">Recipe: <a class="url" href="http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/banana-cake-3734">Banana Cake</a></h2>

<p class="summary"><strong>Summary</strong>: <This cake recipe is from the 1940s that was put together by the Women's Auxiliary in Alice Springs…</em></p>

<div class="ingredients">

<h3>Ingredients</h3>

<ul class="ingredients">

<li class="ingredient">1 cup sugar </li>

<li class="ingredient">1&1/2 cups self raising flour</li>

<li class="ingredient">1/2 cup butter </li>

<li class="ingredient">2 eggs</li><li class="ingredient">2 eggs</li>

</ul>

</div>

<div class="instructions">

<h4>Instructions</h4>

<li>Use a food processor Pre heat oven to 160C / gas mark 3 Add all ingredients and blend until well mixed Pour into lined loaf tin Bake for 1 hour Cool and enjoy If you are a nut lover, once ingredients are blended add 60g chopped walnuts and blend in to the mixture</li>

</div>

<p class="duration"><span class="hrlabel">Cooking time (duration): </span><span class="hritem">90</span></p>

<p class="yield"><span class="hrlabel">Number of servings (yield): </span><span class="hritem">8</span></p>

Posting on SEOgadget: Mark-up Your Recipes Online With hRecipe

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class="ingredient"

class="cooktime"

class="nutrition“

class="calories"

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SEATWAVE GOT IT RIGHT

hcalendar

hreview-aggregate

Combining microformats is awesome – hreview-aggregate with hcalendar for the events

Markup your events with hCalendar: http://bit.ly/a8JRbt

Using hReview for your review pages: http://bit.ly/cMmicZ

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class=“url summary"

span title="2011-05-19T1500Z00" class="dtstart"

class=“photo"

class="location vcard"

class="fn org"

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MICROFORMATS ARE EVERYWHERE

- rel=“friend”

- rel=“me”

- rel=“nofollow”

Perhaps the most well known microformat of all, rel=“nofollow” was found in 2.23% of all links in SEOmoz’s April Linkscape update of 41.3 billion URLs

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For a while – this grey text was found by Patrick Altoft in a class=“fn org url” attribute

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BUT THEY CAN BE LOST

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THANK YOUrichard@seogadget.co.uk

@richardbaxter

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