Working with microformats and microdata

Hidden Meaning

Article from Issue 137/2012
Author(s):

Programs aren’t as smart as humans when it comes to interpreting the meaning of web information. If you want to maximize your search rank, you might want to dress up your HTML documents with microformats and microdata.

HTML lets you mark up sections of text as headings, body text, hyperlinks, and other web page elements. However, these definitions have nothing to do with the meaning of the data: Does the text refer to a person, an organization, a product, or an event? Microformats and their successor, microdata make the meaning a bit more clear by pointing to business cards, product descriptions, offers, and event data in a machine-readable way. In this article, I describe some important microformats, such as hCard, hCal, hProduct, hReview, and Geo. You’ll also get an introduction to microdata, and you’ll learn about some open source tools for integrating awareness of microformats and microdata into your own programs.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subs
Digisubs
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Microformats

    Microformats are simple HTML tags that reveal information about web data. We'll show you how to take advantage of this handy technology.

    more »
  • Perl: Microformats

    Microformats add generally accepted tags, such as social network connections or geodetic coordinates, to HTML pages. Automated scripts collect them and help represent the data in graphically appealing ways – for example, geodata for vacation destinations.

    more »
  • W3C Last Call for HTML5 Review

    The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sends out last call for public review of HTML5 specifications.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

062-068_Semantic.pdf (4.68 MB)

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source