google-search

<entry-title>Google Search</entry-title>

Google is one of several search-engines that index and support microformats.

main search

Google.com supports rel-nofollow, hCard, hReview, hReview aggregate, hProduct (since 2009-05-12 for rich snippets), hCalendar (since 2010-01-22), and hRecipe (since 2010-04-13) - in main search. See also related blog post on hCalendar hRecipe support.

rich snippets

Main article: rich-snippets

Rich Snippets is Google's term for the enhancement of search results ("snippets") with information from microformats from pages.

• See google-rich-snippets-examples for documentation of Google's microformats examples.
• See google-rich-snippets-issues for issues with Google's Rich Snippets Testing tool.

people

Google's documentation on Rich snippets - People support

Details:

• at least two of the following must be present:
  • title or role
  • org
  • adr

hCard properties supported (bold = required)

• fn
• nickname
• photo
• title
• role
• url
• org - "If fn and org have the exact same value, Google will interpret the information as referring to a business or organization"
• adr
  • street-address
  • locality
  • region
  • postal-code
  • country-name
• friend (presumably from xfn)
• contact (presumably from xfn)
• acquaintance (presumably from xfn)

organizations

Google's documentation on Rich snippets - Organizations support

Details:

• "Organization information (for example, details about a business such as a restaurant or attraction) that is marked up in the body of a web page can help Google understand location information in reviews or events."
• "It can also be displayed on a Place Page—a web page that organizes all relevant information about a place. more about rich snippets for local search

hCard properties supported (bold = required)

• fn/org - "use both fn and org, and ensure that these have the same value."
• url
• adr
  • street-address
  • locality
  • region
  • postal-code
  • country-name
• tel
• geo
  • latitude
  • longitude

reviews

Google's documentation on Rich snippets - Reviews support

Details:

• the main topic of the page needs to be about a specific product or service. For example, using review markup on a page containing multiple products is not supported.
• If the markup contains a single review, the reviewer’s name needs to be a valid name (Person or Organization)
  • presumably an hCard

hReview properties supported (bold = required)

• item
  • fn
• rating
  • value
  • best
    • value-title support:

       <span class="best"><span class="value-title" title="10"/></span>
      

  • worst
  • "Tip: Don't add a separate hidden text block to specify the rating. Hidden content will not be displayed."[1]
  • img alt number parsing:

    <img class="rating" src="four_star_rating.gif" alt="4 Star Rating: Recommended" />
    

  • value-title support:

    <span class="rating"><span class="value-title" title="4.5" /></span>
    

• reviewer
• dtreviewed
• description
• summary

hReview-aggregate additional properties supported in addition to the above (or additional requirements / subproperties)

• count - "The total number of reviews for the item on your site. Note: Whenever you include count, the page must also contain review markup for each reviewed item. count should only include reviews on your own site."
• votes - "contributes toward the average rating but not towards the number of reviews available" - essentially, a "number of ratings" property.
• rating - required in their hReview-aggregate support
• rating
  • average (additional subproperty)
• photo - though presumably this works in hReviews as well

recipes

Google's documentation on Rich snippets - Recipes support

Details:

• "When using recipe markup, the main topic of the page needs to be about a specific recipe. Using recipe markup on a page containing multiple recipes is not supported."
• "f the recipe markup contains a single review, the reviewer’s name needs to be a valid name (Person or Organization)." [[[hCard]]]

hRecipe properties supported (bold = required)

• fn
• tag
• photo
• published
• summary
• review - nested hReview
• prepTime - "length of time it takes to prepare the recipe for dish, in ISO 8601 duration format."
  • min
  • max
• cookTime - "time it takes to actually cook the dish, in ISO 8601 duration format."
  • min
  • max
• duration - "total time it takes to prepare the[sic] cook the dish, in ISO 8601 duration format."
  • min
  • max
• nutrition - "These elements are not explicitly part of the hRecipe microformat, but Google will recognize them."
  • servingSize
  • calories
  • fat
  • saturatedFat
  • unsaturatedFat
  • carbohydrates
  • sugar
  • fiber
  • protein
  • cholesterol
• instructions
  • instruction
• yield
• ingredient
  • name (not fn?)
  • amount
• author - Can include nested Person information - hCard

products and listings

Google's documentation on Rich snippets - Products support

Details:

• "mark up your product information on a product page (a page that contains only a single product) or an aggregated offer page (a page that lists a single product, along with information about different sellers offering that product).

hProduct properties supported (bold = required)

• name (not fn?)
• image
• description
• brand
• category
• review - a nested hReview aggregate
• identifier
  • types: asin, isbn, mpn, sku, upc
• offerDetails - hListing - "An offer to sell the product. Includes a nested Offer or Offer-aggregate."

hListing properties supported (bold = required)

• price - "A floating point number. You may use either a decimal point ('.') or a comma (',') as a separator."
• currency - "currency used to describe the product price, in three-letter ISO format"
• priceValidUntil - "date (in ISO date format) after which the price will no longer be available. (Your product snippet may not display if the priceValidUntil property indicates a past date.)"
• seller - hCard (Person or Organization)
• condition - "content" attribute must be one of: "new, used, refurbished"
• availability - "content" attribute must be one of: "out_of_stock, in_stock, instore_only, preorder"
• quantity
• offerURL
• identifier
  • types: asin, isbn, mpn, sku, upc
• itemOffered - hProduct - "The item being sold. Typically, this includes a nested Product, but it can also contain other item types or free text."

Related: Offer-aggregate properties supported (bold = required)

• lowPrice - Floating point number
• highPrice - Floating point number
• currency - three-letter ISO format.
• offerCount
• condition - "content" attribute must be one of: "new, used, refurbished"
• offerURL
• identifier
  • types: asin, isbn, mpn, sku, upc
• itemOffered - hProduct - "The item being sold. Typically, this includes a nested Product, but it can also contain other item types or free text."

advanced search

Through additional user interfaces:

• Google Advanced Search - Usage rights supports rel-license (since 2005(?) citation needed)

search APIs

Google provides search APIs like:

• Google Social Graph API supports XFN (launched 2008 February). See "Google Social Graph API How are your sites connected?".

see also

• search-engines
• implementations