Schema.org recently released a variety of changes and additions to their vocabulary and how it is expanded and managed. Changes to Schema.org affect how information is categorized on the internet. Let’s look at what the changes being put in place.
First, what is Schema.org? Schema.org is an organization made up of representatives from Google, Bing and Yahoo. It was started in 2011 as a way to “create, maintain and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet.” It works much like the library’s Dewey Decimal system providing a way to organize and access data across the web.
As internet usage has grown and Schema.org has been adopted, many industries have expressed interest in having their unique vocabularies included in schema.org. To assist with these requests, Schema.org is introducing a new extension mechanism. The new extension mechanism makes it easier to fit custom vocabulary usage into Schema.org terms. For example, the Schema.org ShareAction is used to designate sharable content. However, an item “shared” on Pinterest is actually “pinned” not “shared”. The new extension will extend the schema type to “pinning”.
Schema.org has also released a variety of ways to keep informed about changes and updates.
- W3C Community Group is a new forum for public discussion of changes, additions and extensions to Schema.org.
- Changes and concerns with Schema.org can be seen at GitHub.
- A quick reference page for information on Schema.org versions can be found here.
Those in the automotive industry will enjoy the new Automotive Vocabulary now available. An Automotive Ontology Community Group has also been started in the W3C Community. This group is working to “develop extension proposals for schema.org so that automotive information can be better understood by search engines…”
