[uf-discuss] Making Microformats Searchable

[Nir Yariv]

Hi,

Thank you for your comments!

Just to clarify what I meant - the key here is to have a solution that
works with existing search engines, as they are now. This does put the
burden on the publisher, but I think it might prove quicker to do it
this way than rely on search engine's will and competence to implement
microformat search on their side ;)

In any case, this will be optional - it's not part of any mf's spec,
just an option for publishers who want to get more visibility.

(And on the note of visibility, I accept Tantek's comment. The better
method might be to simply put it as as a small text somewhere in the
page - perhaps footer etc. An ALT for some "microformatted" icon might
be nice, but I understand SEs don't use ALTs much anymore)

Best,
Nir

On 1/20/07, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> 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
>
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