OpenGraph or Schema.org?
Just wondering whether you guys out there are favouring the OpenGraph protocol following markup like:
<meta property="og:title" content="The Rock" />
<meta property="og:type" content="movie" />
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/" />
Or the Schema.org protocol with
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product">
<span itemprop="name">Kenmore White 17" Microwave</span>
<img src="kenmore-microwave-17in.jpg" alt='Kenmore 17" Microwave' />
<div itemprop="aggregateRating"
itemscope itemprop="http://schema.org/AggregateRating">
Which one should I integrate as I think only 1 is necessary ? [actually can you only integrate one or ?]
Frankly, IMHO - I think OpenGraph is "less intrusive" to the total codebase - as it's easier to implement Partial Views [using ASP.NET MVC] whereas the Schema.org protocol requires [at least in my opinion] disruptive HTML add-ins across your code ?
Edit: Seems I ended up integrating both - not sure whether this is allowed but the documentation on Schema.org is unclear. Notably, this link doesn't provide much info
Q: How does schema.org relate to Facebook Open Graph?
Facebook Open Graph serves its purpose well, but it doesn't provide the detailed information search engines need to improve the user experience.
A single web page may have many components, and it may talk about more than one thing. If search engines understand the various components of a page, we can improve our presentation of the data. Even if you mark up your content using the Facebook Open Graph protocol, schema.org provides a mechanism for providing more detail about particular entities on the page.
For example, a page about a band could include any or all of the following:
- A list of albums
- A price for each album
- A list of songs for each album, along with a link to hear samples of each song
- A list of upcoming shows Bios of the band members
So I assume that they are compatible together.
Answer
So, to start with a couple of cliche's and mangled metaphors - we're talking apples and oranges a bit comparing OG and Schema.org, and when it comes to this metadata it's horses for courses.
The right answer depends on your intent, in adding metadata to your page. What is it that you're hoping to gain? What is the win for you here? The different forms of metadata are for slightly different purposes.
Google has made it clear that it's moving away from a focus on microformats and onto a focus on Schema.org in order to build rich-data results for search. If you want to optimize for Google, Bing and other search engines add the Schema.org markup. It's the direction HTML5 has stepped in.
Facebook OG markup is to be added if what you want is to benefit from turning your content into a social object and enable its multi-point connectivity to the social graph that is the Facebook universe.
In my experience most people are looking to gain from both approaches - do as well as they can in search rankings and increase reach and distribution through social channels. So, IMHO, it's probably best to be as thorough as possible adding the Schema.org markup where it fits your content and use Open Graph metadata. They do slightly different, but complementary things.