This document discusses implementing semantic SEO through GoodRelations vocabulary and RDFa markup on product pages for a major online retailer. It provides benefits like improved rendering on Yahoo and displaying price information in Google. Implementing requires adding 15-30 lines of RDFa markup per template with minimal increase to page size and load time. Resources for getting started include a snippet generator and Magento extension. Overall it is a straightforward way to gain SEO and search benefits with little downside.

1. SEO, RDF and GoodRelations
An Implementation by a Major
Industry Online Retailer
Martin Hepp
Email mhepp@computer.org
Twitter @mfhepp Skype mfhepp
Web http://purl.org/goodrelations/

2. What’s SEO, Really?
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3. 1. Being visible for potential buyers
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4. 2. Articulating the value proposition
But: Often flattened to just the price tag…
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5. 3. For a large number of items
Example Number of
Products
BestBuy > 400 k
Amazon > 4 Mio.
Typical small shops 1 … 10 k items
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6. Semantic SEO
Using product master data to articulate your
value proposition over the Web
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7. Semantic SEO: Immediate Effects
• Improved Yahoo Rendering
• Google Price Info
• Ranking / Information Entropy
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8. Semantic SEO: Near-term Effects
• Linking Datasheets & Offers
• Linking Offers & Location Info
• Semantic Affiliate Marketing
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9. How-to: Shop Recipe
• Put basic RDFa in "about" page
• Put RDFa template into "item" page
template
• Make sure you have a sitemap.xml
• Extensions
– Data dump in RDF/XML
– Exposing own categories & feature
vocabulary
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10. Effort
• 15 – 30 lines of additional markup per
template
• Data mapping
• Validation
• Quality control
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11. Page Size and Loading Time: No Problem
Main Page (KB) Product Item Page (KB)
HTML Total HTML Total
Regular BestBuy
Amazon
102
187
815
736
236
286
1536
712
Pages eBay 54 445 75 849
Mean 114 665 199 1032
Main Page Product Item Page
Increase Minimal
HTML
1,40%
Total
0,24%
HTML
1,31%
Total
0,25%
by GoodRelations Full 2,19% 0,38% 3,22% 0,62%
in RDFa With
Features
n/a n/a 6,03% 1,16%
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12. Experiences
• Relatively straightforward to do
• Easy, if site / templates are already up-to-
date
– Valid Markup: XHTML / HTML 5
– sitemap.xml
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13. Conclusion
• Use SEO & SearchMonkey effect to justify
effort now
• Practically no impact on page speed &
traffic
• One type of markup serves current SEO,
Yahoo, Google, and the Web 3.0
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14. Resources
• GoodRelations Snippet Generator
– http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/tools/grsnippetgen/
• GoodRelations Quickstart Guide
– http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/wiki/GoodRelationsQuickstart
• Magento Extension
– http://bit.ly/cZEVQV
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15. Contact
Martin Hepp
Email mhepp@computer.org
Twitter @mfhepp Skype mfhepp
Web http://purl.org/goodrelations/
Slides http://www.slideshare.net/mhepp/presentations
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