Google Microformats and Structured Data

Google uses microformats and structured data to help websites appear in search results with rich snippets, which can increase click-through rates by up to 30%.

Google's microformats and structured data are based on schema.org, a collaborative project between Google, Bing, and Yahoo! that provides a common vocabulary for structured data.

The most common microformat used by Google is hCard, which is used to mark up contact information on websites.

Google's support for microformats is a game-changer for website owners and developers. They will parse the original microformats hCard structure as the current format, so there is backwards compatibility.

This means you can use the hCard Creator markup generator on the Microformats site to create your own contact info, and Google will still be able to read it. The online generator uses the original microformats structure, which is a great tool to have in your toolkit.

The Google Structured Data Testing Tool can also help you test how Google will parse your microformats, but be careful to make sure the start and end dates contain the day and time, or it won't work as expected.

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Using microformats can significantly improve your website's visibility and usability.

One of the main benefits of using microformats is that they help search engines understand the structure and content of your website, making it easier for them to index and rank your pages.

Google's support for microformats allows your website to be more easily crawled and indexed, which can lead to better search engine rankings.

Microformats can also enhance the user experience by providing additional information about your website's content, such as dates, addresses, and reviews.

By adding microformats to your website's markup, you can make it easier for users to find and share your content, which can increase your website's visibility and engagement.

You can use microformats to mark up your contact information, making it easier for search engines to understand and display. The hCard microformat is a great place to start, and you can use the hCard Creator at microformats.org/code/hcard/creator to get started.

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The hCard microformat is used to represent entities like people, organizations, and places, and it's a 1:1 representation of the adr property from the vCard standard. This means it reuses the adr property and sub-properties as-is from the hCard microformat.

adr supports several properties, including post-office-box, extended-address, street-address, locality, region, postal-code, and country-name, which show up in adr as (X)HTML attributes according to class-design-pattern.

You can create your own contact info using the hCard Creator markup generator on the Microformats site, and there's even a newer structure called microformats2 that uses a similar format.

If you're using the original microformats hCard structure, search engines will still be able to parse it as the current format, thanks to backwards compatibility.

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Google has been promoting Schema.org as the preferred vocabulary for structured data. According to their Structured Data Policies, the data may be embedded in your webpage using any of three supported formats: JSON-LD, RDFa, and microdata.

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Google used to read Microformats as well, but it's no longer mentioned in their structured data guides. Microdata is the best documented of the three formats, but it may change with the wind which seems to carry web standards.

Using microformats can bring a site to the first page, but it's not the only factor at play. I've seen it work for niche gaming sites, and it's a good idea to use both microformats and structured data.

For general updatability and indexifyingness, microformats are still preferred. They're almost real-time, very quick index changes, with hubs to boot. Very much better to have these rather than ETAGS or 304 + AI trying to figure relevant changes.

The solution is to use both! Add Atom as well, go all out. This way, you'll be covering all your bases and giving Google the best chance to understand your content.