
Google confirms microformats are still a supported metadata format for content - cxr
https://www.jvt.me/posts/2020/03/02/google-microformats-support/
======
reaperducer
No. Just no.

I've removed all of the microdata from the web sites I manage. I'm not giving
Google any information for free.

Google uses microdata to show information from web sites without people
actually visiting the site. Google gets free labor. Publishers get squat.
Adding microdata to content pages consolidates information with Google,
hurting everyone else.

Google has billions of dollars to spend on scraping and searching and whatever
it wants to do. It could mechanical turk the entire internet if it wanted.

I am not Google's free labor.

~~~
bawolff
If you really want to stick it to google, you can always put a robots.txt file
with disallow: * directive.

But you probably don't. Presumably because you rely on google to direct users
to your website. I find it hard to claim that publishers get squat out of this
arrangement when google is probably the primary method relevant users find
your content.

Which to be clear, I'm not saying that website operators have any sort of duty
to assist third parties in extracting just the useful part of their website.
They obviously don't. They can make their website however they feel like. I
just don't think the disdain of google over the practice of extracting and
redisplaying content provided in a format explicitly for the purpose of
letting people do that, is warranted. If you don't want to opt-in, that's
fine, but google is doing nothing wrong by using data provided to the world
for the general purpose of enabling them to do exactly what they are doing.

~~~
reaperducer
_Presumably because you rely on google to direct users to your website._

You presume incorrectly.

The sites I'm talking about have no advertising. They are not ad-supported.
They do not rely on Google or any other search engine in any way.

There are other business models.

~~~
bawolff
Sure.

Many of those business models still rely on people finding your site (although
there are exceptions)

------
SquareWheel
Supported, but not recommended. I switched to JSON-LD last year after using
microdata for years.

~~~
taveras
Agreed. This post should be 100% be titled as supported instead of
recommended.

I recall that John Mueller recommended[1] JSON-LD over the other options
during a Google Webmasters office hours session.

Many of Google Search's Structured Data features[2] primarily have JSON-LD
examples.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/gS4_JH-QqSg?t=2085](https://youtu.be/gS4_JH-
QqSg?t=2085)

[2]: [https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/search-
gall...](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/search-gallery)

~~~
hannibalhorn
I hadn't heard of JSON-LD, but seems sensible, would sure be easier to work
with than the traditional microformats.

The name seems unfortunate, though, as I thought that was "line delimited
JSON"[1]!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON_streaming#Line-
delimited_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON_streaming#Line-
delimited_JSON)

------
techntoke
No where does it say they are still a recommended metadata format. The only
recommended format that they list on their website is JSON-LD:

[https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/sd-
policies...](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/sd-
policies#form)

------
zaxomi
Just wait, soon Google will announce that HTML is deprecated.

~~~
echelon
AMP and Chrome are Google's HTML "embrace, extend, extinguish". In twenty
years the web will be nothing but silos and ad funnels.

Google is doing what Bill Gates wished Ballmer would have done. Thankfully the
Justice Department stepped in to save the fledgling web. Will they be willing
to do so to save it this time around?

Google needs to be forced to abandon Chrome and AMP.

~~~
ljm
Google took what MS did and made it absurd. Chrome is essentially adware, they
just hide it too well. And Google is no longer a positive actor in our
internet.

~~~
bawolff
Google does a lot of things. Some negative some positive. Personally I am
pretty concerned about the near monopoly that chrome has. However they have
had an extremely positive impact on (for example) the security of web PKI
infrastructure. I find it hard to call them not a positive actor on the
internet, when they are one of the more responsible parties for the internet
being secure from surveillance - a huge boon to the health of the internet.

~~~
unlinked_dll
I'm more worried about cross business optimization than single products like
chrome.

Android is way more nefarious than a web browser. And they give it away for
free to device manufacturers. I almost wish for the old days where everyone
had their own OS, monoculture is terrifying.

------
nkozyra
What advantages do/did microformats provide over microdata/schema.org/ld-json?

~~~
ZenPsycho
predating them. everything you listed is inspired by/based on microformats

~~~
nkozyra
I assumed, it seems like a very 2008 solution. That's why I asked what
advantages it had to justify retaining support for it for this long.

I've been doing web development since the commercial web started and somehow
this thing eluded me.

~~~
ZenPsycho
there should be a mailing list for these things or something. "oembed", "jwt"
and "opengraph" are also things that eluded me for a very very long time.

------
dariusj18
Are there any CMS's create with schema.org in mind. ex. All of the schema.org
types are represented and the website is build using a GUI generated by
schema.org definitions?

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jamietanna
Thanks for sharing my post!

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pmlnr
Hang on a sec... so Google specifies which vocabularies it accepts?! That goes
completely against the idea of structured data. That's nasty and bad.

------
tmpfs
Getting a PHP OOM error on that page.

~~~
timdorr
[http://archive.is/8nhVQ](http://archive.is/8nhVQ)

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rufius
That site does a really poor job demonstrating what a Microformat is. There’s
good descriptors but I was looking for an example or scenario to better
elucidate their use...

~~~
dang
The site has since been changed above (submitted url was
[http://microformats.org/2020/03/04/google-confirms-
microform...](http://microformats.org/2020/03/04/google-confirms-microformats-
are-still-a-recommended-metadata-format-for-content)).

------
dang
Url changed from [http://microformats.org/2020/03/04/google-confirms-
microform...](http://microformats.org/2020/03/04/google-confirms-microformats-
are-still-a-recommended-metadata-format-for-content), which points to this.

