What is the use of microdata formats

[anandsapple]

Hi Friends

I want to know What is the use of microdata formats ? Kindly give your best answer.

Thanks

[vkonnect]

Microdata Formats? What's that? I don't think that it has nothing to do with SEO, please do correct me if i am wrong. Thanks

[tstolber]

vkonnect - Microdata formats (and other RDF - Rich Data Formats) are a form of mark up tags to express specific information. HTML5 contains some specific formats for address data. Microdata formats can be used for review data. I have speculated for a while that these will be used by search engines as it helps to specifically identify content, and that potentially has beneficial effects. I see Ecommerce sites being able to take advantage of Microdata formats for product specs and reviews.

Here is an example

<dl itemscope itemtype="http://vocab.example.net/book" itemid="urn:isbn:0-330-34032-8"> <dt>Title <dd itemprop="title">The Reality Dysfunction <dt>Author <dd itemprop="author">Peter F. Hamilton <dt>Publication date <dd><time itemprop="pubdate" datetime="1996-01-26">26 January 1996</time></dl>

from the HTML5 specification