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Message from discussion Rich snippets on language specific google sites
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Subject: Re: Rich snippets on language specific google sites
From: Martin Hepp <mfh...@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <6238dc70-336f-48c5-aa05-8ee972c4b...@n36g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:30:45 +0200
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References: <6238dc70-336f-48c5-aa05-8ee972c4b...@n36g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
To: schemaorg-discussion@googlegroups.com

Hi Roy:
The technique used by search engines is not as simple as "rich snippets =
on" vs. "rich snippets off".
All major engines have to use software components that assess the =
quality (e.g. is the price current?) and trustworthiness (e.g. is the =
data in line with the page content and is the page a relevant resource?) =
of the meta-data. They will only show a rich snippet / rich caption if a =
page passes this test.

Quite likely, but I have to speculate in here, such a component uses =
multiple signals from the page to decide upon whether to show a rich =
snippet / rich caption or not, same as the normal relevance ranking can =
consider more than 100 - 200 signals from a page (including speed, =
domain age, ...). So the general importance and ranking of your site =
domain may e.g. influence whether you see a rich snippet, but that is =
again not the whole storey:

At least the following four things must be in place for seeing a rich =
snippet / caption in a search engine:

1. There must be valid rich markup in the page (or the search engine has =
access to the data from a bilateral data exchange, as it happens with a =
few top sites).
2. The markup must have been there when the page was last crawled / =
indexed, i.e., the meta-data must be in the caches.
3. Rich Snippets must be turned on for the local version of the search =
engine you are using (note that search engines may run multiple versions =
of their user interface even in the same country, for testing or for =
deployment reasons.)
4. The software component indicated above must think that showing a rich =
snippet for your page is likely a good thing.

If you do not see a rich snippet, this can have a wealth of causes:

1. The meta-data markup is invalid or incomplete. (Solution: fix the =
markup)
2. The meta-data is not yet in the search engine's index. (Solution: 1. =
wait 2. implement sitemap.xml properly, especially with correct lastmod =
attributes.)
3. Rich Snippets are not yet available in the local version of the =
search engine (Solution: Wait and hope and pray)
4. The search engine is not convinced that your meta-data adds valuable =
information to Web users (Solution: 1. Re-use visible content for markup =
2. Make sure your page is up to 2011 SEO standards in general, i.e. has =
a good basic ranking, fast page loading times, "clean" item page URIs, =
relevant, real external links, relevant keywords, ... - basic SEO stuff)

Note that the assessment mechanism and/or its calibration may be =
different for different countries, so while your page may pass the test =
for the US version of a search engine, it may not pass the test for the =
Italian version.

I also assume that the calibration of the "gatekeeper" component #4 will =
depend on the number of available training data, so the search engines =
can allow more rich snippets for a country / language / region / local =
version for which they already have a lot of pages with meta-data =
markup. So if you are among the first sites to use rich mark-up in your =
country, you may have to wait a little bit longer than in a country =
where rich mark-up is already widely used.

So from not seeing a Rich Snippet despite rich markup, you cannot easily =
derive that there are no rich snippets turned on for your country.

Hope that helps!

Martin
http://purl.org/goodrelations/

On Sep 27, 2011, at 4:35 PM, Roy Lachica wrote:

> Hi
> If I search for =93tomato soup=94 on google.com I get nice structured
> previews with images, rating etc in the search results listing.
> I also get a menu item =93Recipe=94 and filtering options such as
> ingredients and cooking time.
>=20
> If I do a search for Tomatensuppe (german text) on google.com I also
> get some German rich snippets results.
> When I do the same search on google.de I do not get any rich snippets
> results. There is no Recipe/Rezept type search results in the left
> menu.
>=20
> The same goes for =93crema di pomodoro=94 (Italian text) on =
google.com.
> On google.com I get some Italian rich snippets results but none on
> google.it
>=20
> Looks like rich snippets are only enabled on google.com SERP=92s.
> Can anyone confirm this and if that=92s the case when will it be
> available on language specific google sites?
>=20
>=20
> Best regards
> Roy Lachica
> Webnodes Semantic CMS
> http://webnodes.com

--------------------------------------------------------
martin hepp
e-business & web science research group
universitaet der bundeswehr muenchen

e-mail:  h...@ebusiness-unibw.org
phone:   +49-(0)89-6004-4217
fax:     +49-(0)89-6004-4620
www:     http://www.unibw.de/ebusiness/ (group)
         http://www.heppnetz.de/ (personal)
skype:   mfhepp=20
twitter: mfhepp=
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