HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
<span itemprop="name">ACME Co.</span>
</div>
Example Product
Here is an example of a Product item (to be more accurate, it's the lamp sitting on my desk).
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product">
<h1 itemprop="name">Anglepoise Desk Lamp</h1>
<figure>
<img itemprop="image" src="desk-lamp.png"
alt="A silver Anglepoise desk lamp">
</figure>
<p itemprop="description">
A desk lamp designed by Kenneth Grange, a leading British
industrial designer.
</p>
<h2>Product Specifications</h2>
<p>
Brand: <span itemprop="brand manufacturer" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
<span itemprop="name">Anglepoise</span>
</span><br>
Model: <span itemprop="model">Type 75</span>
</p>
</div>
Here the
brand
and
manufacturer
properties are the same, so we can define them both using a single
item-
prop
attribute.
Summary
Microdata promises to reduce the headache for developers who are trying to create programs that can mine data from
web pages. Moving toward a more semantic web can only be a good thing, but using microdata does not really erad-
icate this headache: It merely redistributes it.
Instead of the problem being in the realm of a relatively small number of developers building highly complex al-
gorithms for understanding the data hidden away within web pages, it is being distributed among all the developers
who are creating websites. Using microdata increases development overhead in both time and complexity. I am a big
supporter of microdata, but I fear it may meet its demise because of the overhead issues.
The truth is, we have to find a healthy balance between creating pages that are easy for computers to understand and
creating pages that are maintainable. The more you use microdata, the more complex your code becomes, and this
can make it harder to maintain. For this reason, I recommend that you only use microdata for marking up structured
data that is important, such as contact information or product specifications. Don't bloat your pages with microdata
code unless you feel that it's going to have a positive, productive impact.
