hcard-examples-in-wild-with-problems

hCard examples in the wild, with problems

This page is an informative section of the hCard specification.

The following sites have published hCards, which are either invalid or problematic.

Guidelines for use

Entries may be moved here, from hcard-examples-in-wild, if there's a problem with the way hCards are used on the page concerned. If the page is yours, and you want to improve it, see the hCard FAQ, or raise any queries on hCard Issues or the mailing list, where people will be happy to help you.

Please consider distinguishing problems as:

• invalid - the hCard is invalid and cannot be parsed by a parser for any information due to the problem.
• suboptimal - the hCard is technically valid, yet either has one or more properties that have no data due to a markup problem (e.g. adr without children), and/or there is data inside the hCard markup which could be marked up with an hCard (sub)property but isn't.
• hidden - one or more of the hCard's (sub)properties are hidden via CSS or other mechanism and are thus potentially out-of-date or vulnerable to being labelled as spam by search engines.

Examples with problems

• The Brownbook - the open yellow pages The Brownbook is a peer-produced (like a wiki, but not a using a wiki engine) local business search website. It Uses hCard to allow users to export local business contact details to Outlook or other desktop apps, plus for providing detailed maps from Google.
  • Example of a search results page: Hairdressers in Egham
    • suboptimal: Adresses, e.g "2 Station Rd North, Egham, Surrey", are marked up as street-address
  • Example of a single business's details The Hair Emporium.
    • suboptimal: Adresses, e.g "2 Station Rd North, Egham, Surrey", are marked up as street-address
• OnYoMo uses hCard markup for all addresses listed in their local search results.
  • suboptimal: Uses fn not fn org for business names, e.g. [1] Andy Mabbett 01:46, 12 Jan 2008 (PST)
• Sylphen is a IT-solutions-provider and uses hCards on the Contact
  • invalid two of the three examples lack the required fn or fn org property
• Airfix Stockists and Distributors, e.g. [2]
  • suboptimal: street-address contains street address, locality and region (e.g. "99 Hobs Moat Rd, Solihull, W. Midlands")
  • suboptimal: postal-code and country-name include preprended commas
  • suboptimal: fn is used; should be fn org
  • Andy Mabbett 16:22, 19 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• LazyLibrary uses author hCard's on every book page. Example: [3]
  • suboptimal Example has fn=Dorling Kindersley, David West Reynolds (would also benefit from hReview). Andy Mabbett 02:57, 4 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• Wikipedia templates generating Geo
  • hidden - for example List of Minnesota state parks; Alberta Highway 60
  • NOte also removal of hCard properties, e.g. List_of_Gaudi_Buildings
• Mapquest now supports hCards for business and places in the search results (e.g. search for Whole Foods in San Francisco)
  • suboptimal Entire address in "street-address". Andy Mabbett
• Bolton Museum and Archive Service uses hCard on its
  • Contacts page
    • invalid: Several have no "fn" Andy Mabbett 08:33, 21 Aug 2007 (PDT)
  • and on each of its visitor attractions pages e.g. on the Hall i' th' Wood location page.
    • suboptimal: Malformed "email" & "tel" Andy Mabbett 08:33, 21 Aug 2007 (PDT)
• reefscape.net Personal blog page that has a hidden hCard in the about section on every page. A vCard can be downloaded using the Technorati service.
  • Hidden.
• www.cosmotourist.com and www.cosmotourist.de A new German and English portal around travel tips. Using hidden hCard for hotel listings, wherever address data is available.
  • Hidden.
• Venn Communications System uses a hidden hCard sitewide.
  • Hidden.
• Last FM has hCards hidden on their profile pages e.g. [4].
  • Hidden.
• Kriss Watt has hidden an hCard his blog footer.
  • Hidden.
• Frances Berriman has a hidden vCard in the footers of her website.
  • Hidden.
• CandleScience Candle Supply added a hidden hcard sitewide.
  • Hidden.
• Meryl K. Evans has a hidden hCard on her homepage.
  • Hidden.
• High Flyers Careers, India's first flight-crew placement agency uses microformats for their corporate information page. Using standards couldn't be easier or better.
  • Has honorific prefixes as part of "fn", rather than marked up separatley.
• Spotstor.com eg - [5] uses hCard on profile pages (where user has elected to show contact information).
• Stanford Online Accessibility Program has implemented hCard on every page
  • positioned off screen via CSS Andy Mabbett 15:09, 9 Apr 2007 (PDT)
• Belkin Press Release - All Belkin press releases since October 2006 use hCard and vCard for company contact info.
  • One of the three hCards in invalid (no "fn") Andy Mabbett 16:50, 2 Apr 2007 (PDT)
• Ray & Berndtson, a global recruitment firm, are listing all of their offices worldwide as hCards, e.g UK offices.
  • All invalid: no "fn". Andy Mabbett 07:05, 31 Mar 2007 (PDT)
• The imprint of Hohenstaufen Gymnasium Kaiserslautern
  • No adr. Andy Mabbett 12:10, 3 Mar 2007 (PST)
• Alexa Internet marked up its managers' page with hCard.
  • Person's job title within "fn". Andy Mabbett
• Natural England (new UK government agency, formed 2006-10-01).
  • No "fn" - which makes it invalid.
• G3:2 uses hCard with geo tags in the copyright and on the about me page
  • Address data is hidden using CSS.
• ZDnet Contact Us Page supports hCard.
  • by James Myers and David Long
  • Images and e-mail addresses are hidden; telephone numbers do not comply with E.123
• Gerard Braad has published an example on his profile page that is almost consistent with his original vCard file. Also progress is made for transforming his FoaF file to a hCard encoded representation (also done for my spouse:Yong Yuan)
  • (2005-09-27) PASSED, PASSED
  • WARNINGS
    • uses 'n given-name' and 'n family-name' instead of nesting the given- and family- names inside the 'n'
    • has one 'tel' value with a bunch of values stuffed in
    • probably more problems --RyanKing 17:19, 5 Jan 2006 (PST)
• Cori Schlegel discusses how he has updated his contact page with hCard
  • INVALID - using 'prefix' instead of 'honorific-prefix' and type's in classnames (in both adr and tel) and has two photo's (the second could be 'logo') --RyanKing 15:15, 5 Jan 2006 (PST)
• Landsbanki Føroya
  • INVALID - using embedded RDF/XML invalidly
• University of Bath Person Finder results are encoded with hCards so you can easily create a vCard from any result.
  • ERROR - attempt to use Implied-N optimization where that's not possible. --RyanKing 14:29, 5 Jan 2006 (PST)
  • Error appears for external users only. Won't be fixed any time soon. -- PhilWilson 00:03, 28 Jan 2006 (GMT)
  • suboptimal - has honorific-prefix as part of fn -- Andy Mabbett 09:00, 3 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• Yellow Pencil Using microformats to present company contact information
  • First hcard has empty "fn" and no "n". "fn" should be with "org" -- ScottReynen 21:29, 19 Jun 2006 (CST)

Related Pages

• hCard
• hCard cheatsheet - hCard properties
• hCard creator (feedback) - create your own hCard.
• hCard authoring - learn how to add hCard markup to your existing contact info.
• hCard examples - example usage of various classes within hCard.
• hCard examples in the wild - an on-going list of websites which use hCards.
• hcard-supporting-user-profiles - sites with user profiles marked up with hCard - a very common example.
• hCard FAQ - if you have any questions about hCard, check here.
• hCard implementations - websites or tools which either generate or parse hCards.
• hCard parsing - normative details of how to parse hCards.
• hCards and pages - semantic distinctions between different hCards on a page, and how to identify each
• hcard-user-interface - techniques and issues surrounding user-interfaces to author, publish, and display hCards.
• hCard profile - the XMDP profile for hCard
• hCard singular properties - an explanation of the list of singular properties in hCard.
• hCard tests - a wiki page with actual embedded hCards to try parsing.
• hCard advocacy - encourage others to use hCard
• hCard "to do" - jobs to do

The hCard specification is a work in progress. As additional aspects are discussed, understood, and written, they will be added. These thoughts, issues, and questions are kept in separate pages.

• hCard brainstorming - brainstorms and other explorations relating to hCard.
  • hcard-parsing-brainstorming - brainstorming specific to parsing of hCard
  • geo brainstorming
• hCard feedback - general feedback (as opposed to specific issues).
• hCard issues - specific issues with the specification.
• vCard errata - corrections to the vCard specification, which underlies hCard.
• vCard suggestions - suggested improvements to the vCard specification.