Semantic SEO

Users of Prestashop, the popular open source e-commerce package that powers over 100,ooo shops, now have easy access to semantic markup through the release of a free extension module from Makolab S.A. The extension adds markup from the GoodRelations vocabulary using RDFa syntax to the product item page templates. Read more

Jay Myers, Lead Web Development Engineer at BestBuy, has moved the proverbial ball forward yet again by creating an implementation of the schema.org vocabulary in BestBuy’s Black Friday web pages.

First, a bit of history…

Myers began incorporating structured data into BestBuy web pages in 2009. Starting initially with basic store information (hours of operation, location, contact information), Myers soon expanded the project to include product pages, music data, and the 600,000+ item product catalog. This work quickly became a widely cited use-case for semantic markup. In particular, it brought a lot of attention to the RDFa syntax and the GoodRelations vocabulary. The effort resulted in improved page rankings, richer display of BestBuy search listings in browsers, and — after putting user-friendly tools in the hands of store managers —  enabled Myers to tackle the retail problem of Open Box returns.

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Last month, we reported on the new RDFa 1.1 Lite proposal by Ben Adida. In our recent podcast on Schema.org with guest Ramanathan V. Guha, we touched on the topic of RDFa Lite as well.

Today, schema.org spokesperson Dan Brickley posted that “we’re pleased to give advance notice of a new way of adopting schema.org’s structured data vocabulary. W3C’s RDF Web Applications group are right now putting the finishing touches to the latest version of the RDFa standard. This work opens up new possibilities also for developers who intend to work with schema.org data using RDF-based tools and Linked Data, and defines a simplified publisher-friendly ‘Lite’ view of RDFa.”

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[Editor's Note: In our most recent SemanticLink podcast with special guest R.V. Guha, we mentioned RDFa 1.1 Lite, proposed by Ben Adida at last month's Schema.org workshop. Thanks to Manu Sporny for sharing the following look at RDFa 1.1 Lite.]

Summary: RDFa 1.1 Lite is a simple subset of RDFa consisting of the following attributes: vocab, typeof, property, rel, about and prefix.

During the schema.org workshop, a proposal was put forth by RDFa’s resident hero, Ben Adida, for a stripped down version of RDFa 1.1, called RDFa 1.1 Lite. The RDFa syntax is often criticized as having too much functionality, leaving first-time authors confused about the more advanced features. This lighter version of RDFa will help authors easily jump into the Linked Data world. The goal was to create a very minimal subset that will work for 80% of the folks out there doing simple markup for things like search engines. Read more

On Friday, October 14, a group of Semantic thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the latest installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about schema.org. The Semantic Link panel was joined by special guest, Ramanathan V. Guha, Google Fellow, and one of the principal people behind schema.org.

• Play the Podcast (1 hour)
• Subscribe to the Monthly Podcast
• See All Semantic Link Podcasts

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[UPDATE - November 9, 2011: the IPTC rNews version 1.0 documentation is now available.]

Evan Sandhaus, New York Times (seated) and Andreas Gebhard, Getty Images, present rNews.

Today (Oct. 7, 2011), at a gathering of the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), rNews took the step from being a proposal to being a formal standard. rNews was created by the IPTC and made its public debut earlier this year as a proposal for using RDFa to annotate news-specific metadata in HTML documents.

Congratulations to the IPTC and the leaders of the rNews standardization effort: Andreas Gebhard (Getty Images), Evan Sandhaus (New York Times), and Stuart Myles (Associated Press).

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A recent article informs online retailers that “Starting now, you’re going to need good structured markup on your X/HTML in addition to your white hat tactics. I see structured markup as being equally important to authoritative inbound links as a ranking factor when optimizing content. Why? Because search robots are designed to serve search engine users by matching their search query expectations, known as user intent. These bots are machines, and they’re trying to discern the human mind’s evaluation of information in answer to human-entered keywords.” Read more

PoolParty, a sponsor of the upcoming SemTechBiz UK conference, has released a free linked data plugin for WordPress. According to PoolParty, “In a recent video Matt Cutts from Google announced that smart internal linking is one of the key strategies for SEO in 2011. So PoolParty Team has released a freely available plugin for WordPress (download plugin) which consumes linked data and offers features for any WordPress driven blog or website making it more understandable and helping to improve interlinking articles. The website will be improved by linking posts with key terms and key terms with other key terms.” Read more

I hate to even mention how quickly Summer is passing, but as we head into August, it’s time to start making plans for the busy Fall event season. September is particularly full of Semantic Tech events.

September 14, in New York City, the Semantic Web Media Summit will take place. A half-day meeting focused on uses of Semantic Web in media, advertising, and publishing, the event is produced by SemanticWeb.com, Lotico.com and our parent company, MediaBistro. With a keynote by Mike Dunn, CTO of Hearst Interactive, and contributions from a stellar group of presenters, the program promises to be a must-attend event for anyone in the New York area interested in how Semantic Technology is changing the media world.  OpenAmplify is sponsoring the conference.

September 21-23, DC-2011, the eleventh International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, will take place at the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague.

Also on Sept. 21, the folks at Schema.org are planning a workshop in Silicon Valley. There are still few details available about this event.

September 26-27, The London Semantic Technology and Business Conference (#SemTechBiz) takes place at the Hotel Russell. This two-day executive conference is designed for business and technology executives who need to learn what semantic technologies are and how to take advantage of semantics in their enterprise and web-based systems. Attendees will further their technical understanding in introductory sessions and learn from the Keynote speakers John O’Donovan (Press Association), Martin Hepp (Hepp Research), Steve Harris (Garlik), and Dennis E. Wisnosky, U.S. Department of Defense.

If you have been following the news from the world of web standards, linked data, and/or semantic web, you certainly have heard about schema.org. If you missed it, schema.org is a collaboration of Google, Yahoo! and Bing and is a way to include structured data in web pages. The vocabulary includes descriptive terms for content like movies, music, organizations, TV shows, products, locations, and more – there are over 100 terms. According to the Schema.org website, the goal is “to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages.”

Announced just before The San Francisco Semantic Technology Conference, Schema.org was the most heated discussion topic the conference has seen in some time, and since then has been talked about extensively in news publications, podcasts, email discussion boards, and Q&A systems. (In case you missed all the hubub, following is a timeline of some of the early reactions.)

There is little doubt that schema.org will continue to be a topic of conversation for some time to come, but as we are now about one month in, we wanted to look in on the discussion and provide an aggregation of some of the many voices and opinions we have heard, including some very recent developments and newly available video of the Google Rich Snippets session from SemTech.

Be sure to see the bottom of this post for the latest!

Timeline

June 2 – schema.org is announced by Google, Yahoo, and Bing

June 2 – A public discussion forum is opened as a Google Group

June 2 – Mike Bergman – Structured Web Gets Massive Boost/

June 3 -  schema.rdfs.org is announced. This was a quick response from the Linked Data community “to express the terms provided by the Schema.org consortium in RDF.” Of particular interest may be the various tools that are in development by community members.

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