[uf-discuss] Making Microformats Searchable

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 1/20/07 6:56 PM, "Scott Reynen" <scott at randomchaos.com> wrote:

> On Jan 20, 2007, at 7:38 PM, Nir Yariv wrote:
> 
>> The idea is simply to have a standard text that can be added to a Web
>> page containing mf-ed content. For example, "mf_hReview". Since the
>> text exists outside of tags, it is indexed by existing search engines,
>> and thus a Google search for "mf_hReview Dylan Highway 61" would yield
>> reviews of that album. (Obviously there will be texts for
>> hCalendar/hCard etc, facilitating searches for "mf_hCalendar barCamp",
>> for example)
> 
> Hi Nir,
> 
> As you point out in your post, there are already a few search engines
> for microformats.  If these search engines can find microformats, it
> seems Google could as well.  They just need to start looking.  My
> concern with your solution is that it puts the burden of solving this
> problem primarily on publishers rather than search engines.  Because
> publishers vastly outnumber search engines, the burden should really
> remain on the search engines as it is currently.

In addition, search engines very much frown upon use of user-invisible text
in the body of the page to alter search results.

If you are looking for a valid non-visible hint in pages that microformats
may be present, the existing profile attribute mechanism serves this
purpose.

 http://gmpg.org/xmdp/

 http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-profile

etc.

Thanks,

Tantek