no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
Posted Jun 22, 2014 22:50 UTC (Sun) by anselm (subscriber, #2796)In reply to: no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them by bronson
Parent article: Microformats turn 9 years old
This is really a chicken/egg problem. Few people bother to publish data using microformats because there isn't a lot of software that uses them. On the other hand, few people feel the need to write software that uses microformats because they are so little used.
I don't think we need to appeal to the »nerd factor« to explain why we don't see more microformat-enabled web sites.
Posted Jun 23, 2014 2:02 UTC (Mon)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (5 responses)
When there's demand, it's no problem. When there's very little demand, though...
Posted Jun 23, 2014 8:10 UTC (Mon)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (4 responses)
Fair enough.
However, let's not forget that the initial question was how a SEO scammer would actually game microformats such as vcard information, to which khim posted a frankly ridiculous and easily refuted answer.
So suppose for a moment that microformats were indeed popular and widespread. How would a spammer arrange to, say, subvert an event microformat when (a) getting data from the page with the event on it into someone's calendar requires an explicit action (unlike spam e-mail, where the spam shows up in your inbox without an explicit action on your part), and (b) the microformat extraction tool implements reasonable and straightforward safeguards similar to those found in most web browsers or MUAs (e.g., the tool would enforce that an event listing in a microformat can only contain URLs with the same domain as the page it is on)?
Posted Jun 24, 2014 6:41 UTC (Tue)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (3 responses)
Now a bit of speculatin' on the problems that a good, general purpose microformat tool might have to overcome...
First problem might be that people will click absolutely anything with an OK button. When adding calendar events that's no big deal (worst case, alarm at 3:30 in the morning: Buy \/ia9ra!) Other formats would need to be more careful, but how do you do that without harming convenience and usability?
Another problem, seems like users would probably get desensitized to notifications. (on every page: "Add Slate to your address book!" "Add Slate to your address book!") This sounds like a problem like browser popups: only solution is to keep tweaking heuristics until you find an adequate compromise between advertisers and users.
Also, scope. How does one microformat tool integrate with all your other applications? Contacts (email, mail, phone, IM, etc), calendar, social graphs, outlines, CV, and all the other ones? Seems like it's got to be built into the browser?
Those seem fairly insurmountable to me. But then again, so did Linux graphics drivers, Wikipedia, and YouTube's business model. I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong.
Posted Jun 24, 2014 9:53 UTC (Tue)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link] (2 responses)
It could be something unobstrusive, like the RSS icon that appears when there is an RSS source available.
This way the user would initiate the data transfer.
> Seems like it's got to be built into the browser?
I guess that makes most sense, the difficulty would be to find some kind of plugin API so that browsers could easily hook into the paltform's data services.
Posted Jun 24, 2014 18:26 UTC (Tue)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jun 25, 2014 6:58 UTC (Wed)
by krake (guest, #55996)
[Link]
They are a trade-off between spacial needs and clarity.
I find the RSS icon useful, I've added many feeds to my reader that way.
But such an icon is just one option, if there are better unobstrusive ways to make the user aware of the additional content then they are obviously also valid and probably preferably choices.
This was just an example that enabling users to access additional content does not require interrupting their present task via a popup.
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
E.g. a "Contact" icon appearing when there is an embedded contact information.
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them
no one uses them, if they did, search engines would ignore them