Semantic SEO for Google with GoodRelations and RDFa
Breaking News: Google has just announced that they now support the GoodRelations vocabulary developed by Prof. Hepp for Google Rich Snippets.
If you add a few extra lines to the HTML code of your Web site, you will feed Google and hundreds of evolving mobile and recommender applications in one turn.
On this page, we provide slightly modified markup that is superior to the original Google pattern for marking up your pages. Our recipe, developed by the inventor of GoodRelations for you personally, is understood by ALL RDFa-aware search engines, shopping comparison sites, and mobile services, while the Google recipe is perfect for Google only.
Principle and Effect
If you add a little bit of additional mark-up to your page, Google will use that information to substantially enhance the rendering of your page directly in the search results list.
There is preliminary evidence that search results with respective extensions get a 30 % higher click-through rate (CTR).
The flickering nature of search results in the new Google Instant technology will very likely further increase the gains of more appealing rendering in the results list. So don't put this off. Act today!
Without GoodRelations in RDFa

With GoodRelations in RDFa

Note: The product images are currently not shown by Google, but we assume this will be turned on shortly.
How-to
Simply use our following HTML markup recipe instead of what Google recommends, which misses a few important attributes.
The minor yet important differences are:
- add "about" attributes for turning the key data elements into identifiable resources For being able to refer to your offer data
- add "datatype" attributes to all literal values For valid RDF
- add alt="Product image" to images For XHTML compatibility
- add foaf:page link The empty quotation marks are just fine - they are equivalent to the deep link of your page.
- add gr:hasEAN_UCC-13 for the EAN/ISBN13 code Replace 01234567890128 by the actual EAN-13 or ISBN-13 code of your product.
If you just have a UPC code, add a preceeding "0". This is very useful for linking your offer to datasheets provided by their manufacturers. - add the gr:hasBusinessFunction to make clear you are selling the item
- add gr:offers link to the company via the "rev" attribute You may also want to insert this markup into your main page then.
<div xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" xmlns:gr="http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#" typeof="gr:Offering" about="#product_data"> <span property="gr:name">Hepp Research Personal SCSI Controller Card</span> <span rel="foaf:depiction"> <img src="pscsi.jpg" alt="Product image" /> </span> <span rel="v:hasReview"> <span typeof="v:Review-aggregate" about="#review_data"> Average rating: <span property="v:average" datatype="xsd:string">4.9</span>, based on <span property="v:count" datatype="xsd:string">99</span> reviews </span> </span> <span rel="gr:hasPriceSpecification"> <span typeof="gr:UnitPriceSpecification"> Regular price: $159.99 Sale price: $<span property="gr:hasCurrencyValue" datatype="xsd:float">99.99</span> <span property="gr:validThrough" content="2010-11-30T23:59:59" datatype="xsd:dateTime">
(Sale ends November 30)
</span> <span property="gr:validFrom" content="2010-11-15T00:00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"></span> <span property="gr:hasCurrency" content="USD" datatype="xsd:string"></span> </span> </span> <span property="gr:condition" content="used">Used</span> <span property="gr:description">The Hepp Research Personal SCSI is a 16-bit add-on card that allows
attaching up to seven SCSI devices to your computer.
Designed in 1991 by Martin Hepp, the maker of the GoodRelations vocabulary for e-commerce.</span> <span property="gr:hasStockKeepingUnit" content="123-456" datatype="xsd:string"></span> <span property="gr:hasMPN" content="PSCSI" datatype="xsd:string"></span> Category: PC Components <span rel="gr:hasInventoryLevel"> <span typeof="gr:QuantitativeValue"> <span property="gr:hasMinValue" content="1" datatype="xsd:float">In-stock! Order now!</span> </span> </span> <!-- Additional properties that improve the accessibility of your data --> <div rel="gr:hasBusinessFunction" resource="http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#Sell"></div> <div property="gr:hasEAN_UCC-13" content="01234567890128" datatype="xsd:string"></div> <div rel="foaf:page" resource=""></div> <!-- mind the rev (not rel) property in the following --> <div rev="gr:offers" resource="http://www.heppresearch.com/#company"></div> </div>
References and Materials
- Google: Products - Webmaster Tools Help Page
- GoodRelations Vocabulary
- Webcast: A Short Introduction to Semantic Web-based E-Commerce (15 min)
Contact Details
Hepp Research GmbH
Karlstraße 8
D-88212 Ravensburg
Germany
Postfach 1202 52
D-88201 Ravensburg
Phone +49 751 2708 5256-0
Fax +49 751 2708 5256-9
Web http://www.heppresearch.com/
eMail contact@heppresearch.com
Twitter heppresearch
Skype heppresearch