Microdata vs RFDa

Question

I am wondering whether to use Microdata or RFDa to mark information for search engines on my Webapplication. Google supports and has documentation for both. But i was not able to find a summary comparing both formats and giving suggestion on which one to use.

Answer 1

Choosing which one is better for you is (IMO) somewhat subjective. Here are a couple factors that may help you to make an informed decision:

• RDFa is problematic for non-XHTML web pages (though support appears to be emerging), and has a bit of a learning curve when dealing with nested entities (see the Google example for Address)

• Facebook's Open Graph Protocol is RDFa-based

There are likely other factors specific to your situation...

Answer 2

Microformats are much simpler to understand and implement, using additional classes on existing HTML elements (or additional span/div elements where necessary).

RDFa on the other hand is more complex and can be difficult to implement, using attributes like xmlns:v and values like v:Person. Like JasonBirch says it's a little problematic for non-XHTML pages (and as such won't validate, if that matters to you).

Answer 3

Google seems to prefer microdata but also seems to It seems they support them all.