[uf-discuss] Microformats and Spam

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 11/18/05 2:25 AM, "justin norton" <jusnorton at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Hello again,
> 
> The following is a link to  a website that uses the hCard micro-format and it
> is from the article  on this website that I posed my original question as to
> whether  micro-formats could be considered spam due to hidden text. Sorry I
> should have provided the reference sooner.:
> 
> http://usabletype.com/articles/2005/usable-microformats/

Yes, that's a good article.

Thanks for providing the reference.  I have summarized the responses to your
earlier query in the comments there as well.

I'd suggest if you want to continue the discussion about spam (which is not
particularly on topic for that introductory article), that you please do so
on the list here.


> This example of micro-formats does indeed use hidden text via CSS for the
> on-page display of address information.

Where?

I searched the entire article for "none" both in the text and the code and
didn't find any instances.  Therefore there is no use of "display:none" and
no hidden text via CSS.


> Here is a useful article regarding SEO and hidden text from one of Google's
> engineers, Matt Cutts:

Note that Matt Cutts is one of the inventors of the rel-nofollow
microformat:

 http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow


> http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-mistakes-unwise-comments/
> 
> Although the article mainly concerns the use of hidden comment text
> throughout his blog there are references to NOT using CSS to hide text.

As said before, microformats encourage the use of *visible data*, not
invisible (meta)data, and thus microformats agrees with the position that
you should NOT use CSS to hide microformatted content.

And, read this blog post by Matt Cutts where he makes some good points about
microformats:

 http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/web-20/

This quote is particularly telling:

"And the data isn¹t out-of-band like RSS is­it¹s incorporated on the HTML
page­so it¹s a little easier to handle."

As far as we know, the source you cite, Matt Cutts, thinks microformats are
"Pretty neat stuff."


> Check out this article for further references:
> 
> http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/11/jagger-or-jger-googles-update.html
> 
> Let me know what you think, maybe the question could do with clarification
> from Google themselves.

See above.

As far as I can tell you did not raise any new issues with this email as
compared to your previous email on this topic:
 
http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-November/0019
95.html 


Did you receive the responses to your earlier email which answered your
questions?

http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-November/0019
96.html

http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-November/0019
97.html

http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-November/0019
98.html

http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-November/0019
99.html


Thanks,

Tantek