The microformat frameworks in web sites are designed to allow search engines, web syndication and aggregators and similar to find or extract semantic data by reading HTML on a website. Microformats are designed to be both human and machine readable.
Microformats are unobtrusive and do not require the developer to change the way they work. Classes or identifiers are added to the data displayed on a web page to give semantic meaning.
An example of displaying contact information in HTML without the microformat framework:
The same HTML with the microformat framework for contact information:
The class vcard here is a root class name for the hCard. The classes fn and tel are properties of the hCard.
Examples of microformats are:
- hCard: Contact information for individuals or organisations
- hCalendar: Used for calendars or events
- geo: Geographical Coordinates
- hProduct: information about products such as brand, price
Google, Yahoo!, Yandex and Bing have been collaborating since 2011 with the schema.org initiative to have a common format for data entities that is understood by all four companies. Initially only the big four search engines had access to the large quantity of formatted microdata crawled together along with the HTML pages. When the Common Crawl Foundation – a non-profit organisation was formed it started crawling the Web and presenting the formatted data for public usage.
The use of the microformat framework enriches search results and allows entity descriptions within applications.
References
Meusel, R., Petrovski, P., & Bizer, C. (2014). The webdatacommons microdata, rdfa and microformat dataset series. In The Semantic Web–ISWC 2014: 13th International Semantic Web Conference, Riva del Garda, Italy, October 19-23, 2014. Proceedings, Part I 13 (pp. 277-292). Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-11964-9_18.
waterpigs.co.uk/. (n.d.). Microformats – building blocks for data-rich web pages. https://microformats.org/
Suda, B. (2006). Using microformats. ” O’Reilly Media, Inc.”. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nLrJH-_sGjEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=microformats+using&ots=Jj-RpCEgru&sig=5eAHJGRuUj1CP2v9lyBULkHdCTE#v=onepage&q=microformats%20using&f=false
A really clear, succinct explanation of microformats. Thanks for sharing.
Great job on the post, I really like how you have given an example of the code with and without the microformat framework. I also love the colours of your website. Well done.
Awesome and informative Melissa … loved it!