Yandex and Schema.org: the standardization of the “Islands” has begun
We at Yandex understand the importance of standardization and try to ensure that even what webmasters do for us is transparent and accessible to everyone. In May, we announced the “Islands” platform, and recently its part has already entered the standard Schema.org.
Schema.org is a joint initiative of the largest search engines. The main task of the representatives of Yandex, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft - the development of a single scheme for semantic markup in HTML5 .
The Schema.org project is on a par with the development of the Semantic Web and Linked Data . A single scheme allows webmasters to create metadata that is immediately known to all the major search engines. They give their robots the ability to "understand" what the site contains, and allow them to improve the quality of search.
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We talked in detail with all of this with Sasha ajax_ya Shubin - the person who is responsible for interacting with Schema.org in Yandex.
Hi Sasha. Please tell us what actions are and why the adoption of this standard is important for us?
Hey. Actions is a big change in the schema.org dictionary, which is designed to describe the interaction of objects with each other. This is a big and important change, because if earlier schema.org described separate objects, now it is about some actions that are associated with these objects. Why is this important for us and why is it important for the “Island” platform? As you probably know, there are now two possibilities in the “Island” platform that webmasters can use. One of them is the buttons that appear right on the issue of Yandex. To describe them, we specify a set of possible interactions that the user can perform with the site. And it is the list of these interactions, as well as their parameterization, that are very important for us and it was they that were adopted in the first part of the Actions standard.
And why was it necessary to adopt a new standard? Why it was impossible to use those that already have?
Yes, this is a good question. The fact is that existing standards (for example, Activity Streams or in the OpenGraph platform, there are also Actions) treat an action or interaction as a verb. They do not consider it as an independent entity, do not try to understand its meaning. They argue that interaction, some kind of action (for example, “I go, go”) is just a verb, offer to describe its various forms and concentrate on the objects between which the interaction occurs. For us it was important that the action, the action, be independent. So that he had his own parameters, so that he could be used separately. And it is this - the most important change in the new standard, which was not in the old versions.
And what was difficult in inventing this new? Were there any difficulties in the process of adopting the standard?
Yes, there were difficulties. For example, in the adoption process it was necessary to build a hierarchy of interaction. For example, in the “Islands” platform we give the opportunity to send a message. In fact, sending email is part of a more general interaction: communication. And now in schema.org it is. In a hierarchical structure, sending a message is part of the communication action. Another problem is that some interactions can have several meanings. Well, for example, you can check in for a flight at the airport, or you can check in at Foursquare. We in the working group thought for a long time - that is, there were literally several nightly meetings at which we discussed all these subtleties: how can we divide check in in the sense of check in for a flight and check in in the sense of check in on Foursquare.
We thought to present them with two different verbs, but it did not work out, and eventually we came to the following decision. If you, as part of the check in interaction, indicate only the place where it happened, then most likely you meant check in as check in on Foursquare or Facebook. And if you have some other object (like, for example, a flight), then this is just a check in for some flight, a flight. And this is exactly how it is presented now in the Island platform.
And tell me about schema.org in general. How it was formed and why it is needed at all.
Schema.org is a collection of dictionaries that all major consumers understand, the big search engines — Yandex, Google, Bing and Yahoo! .. It originated two years ago, but in fact its history is much deeper and longer. The fact is that the first attempts to use structured information were rather long. Yahoo! first big initiative Search Monkey was launched in 2008. After that, there were products from Google, Yandex, and Bing. But they all had such a problem: to describe some object for which you make a product, you need a standard, a dictionary. Some of these standards already existed. For example, microformats allowed to specify something. However, this was not enough, and therefore each search engine has come up with its own standard for different entities. And the result was the following situation. The webmaster needed to use different standards to interact with different search engines to describe the same object, i.e. the object is one, and the standards are different. More work, more unnecessary code, is very bad for the ecosystem and as a result is bad for everyone. Therefore, it was decided to combine their efforts in this area and make a single standard that everyone would understand. First of all, this is convenient for the webmaster, because he can, by specifying the corresponding tags once, establish interaction with all consumers, with all search engines.
Why is participation in schema.org important for us?
On the one hand, it is important for us to be aware of the current changes, it is important for us to understand what will be next, in order to inform the webmasters in time so that the problem of different standards for describing the same entities is gone, so that it does not exist. On the other hand, we thus have the opportunity to make changes to the dictionary ourselves, to offer some of our new entities that are important to our products and that are important to our webmasters. Since we are the only Russian-speaking members of the working group, we have the opportunity to convey to the working group feedback from our webmasters. For us, this is a big responsibility.
Are actions the first standard that was adopted by schema.org at the suggestion of Yandex?
No, this is not the first standard. The first standard to describe the target audience was adopted about six months ago. We at some point thought that it would be good and useful if the webmaster could indicate, tell us, for what target audience he created the page. For example, I have an online store. I sell goods for children: strollers, nipples, toys. If on each such page I, for example, point out that this wheelchair is intended for children from zero to one year old, and this wheelchair is for children from one year to three. This is useful information that we can use to improve our search. We looked at existing analogues, but realized that nothing of what is now, does not suit us. The existing analogues are either narrowly focused, or very complex, or not about that. And we realized that it was better to invent your own. Light, but, nevertheless, the standard meeting our requirements, and enclose it in the working group schema.org. We did just that. There were quite a few different discussions inside and out. In the process, we simplified it somewhat, slightly changed the composition and language to meet Western standards for describing the target audience: gender, age. And finally accepted.
As a person who is directly involved in the work of schema.org, tell us about the process in general. How is your work going?
This is a working group with four search engines. From each search engine there are representatives (usually several of them). There is a mailing list, there are weekly meetings (audio and video). Accordingly, we are in the evening (usually it happens at 10 pm, earlier on Fridays, but now it's good that on Thursdays) we meet and discuss current issues: current changes to the dictionaries, new suggestions, how to improve, how to communicate with the community, etc. Approximately twice a year, a personal meeting takes place to discuss the same issues, as well as some more complex issues that are difficult to discuss remotely. Moreover, due to the time difference (the maximum difference between us is 11-12 hours, when we have a late evening, they have an early morning) in this state not all issues can be discussed. For the external community, there are other means besides this: open mailing, open wiki. All this is implemented by means of W3C, and anyone can go there without any additional registration, without anything like that and communicate with the working group, make their own proposals, suggest their own changes. All this is considered, all these questions are answered.
Maybe you will tell us about some of our future plans in the work of schema.org?
The most important part, the most important for us now is the adoption of the second part of the description of interactions. The fact is that now only a list of basic actions and their parameterization have been adopted. In fact, the part about how the action can be implemented is not covered at all. This is an important part of the Island platform. This is the second part of the standard of actions, which is now discussed in schema.org, and, I hope, will be adopted soon. In addition, we have several other proposals related to our new products, but unfortunately I can’t talk about it.
Clear. Thank you very much, Sasha, for an interesting story! I hope that we will talk more about our work at schema.org.
Thank.
Schema.org is a joint initiative of the largest search engines. The main task of the representatives of Yandex, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft - the development of a single scheme for semantic markup in HTML5 .
The Schema.org project is on a par with the development of the Semantic Web and Linked Data . A single scheme allows webmasters to create metadata that is immediately known to all the major search engines. They give their robots the ability to "understand" what the site contains, and allow them to improve the quality of search.
')
We talked in detail with all of this with Sasha ajax_ya Shubin - the person who is responsible for interacting with Schema.org in Yandex.
Hi Sasha. Please tell us what actions are and why the adoption of this standard is important for us?
Hey. Actions is a big change in the schema.org dictionary, which is designed to describe the interaction of objects with each other. This is a big and important change, because if earlier schema.org described separate objects, now it is about some actions that are associated with these objects. Why is this important for us and why is it important for the “Island” platform? As you probably know, there are now two possibilities in the “Island” platform that webmasters can use. One of them is the buttons that appear right on the issue of Yandex. To describe them, we specify a set of possible interactions that the user can perform with the site. And it is the list of these interactions, as well as their parameterization, that are very important for us and it was they that were adopted in the first part of the Actions standard.
And why was it necessary to adopt a new standard? Why it was impossible to use those that already have?
Yes, this is a good question. The fact is that existing standards (for example, Activity Streams or in the OpenGraph platform, there are also Actions) treat an action or interaction as a verb. They do not consider it as an independent entity, do not try to understand its meaning. They argue that interaction, some kind of action (for example, “I go, go”) is just a verb, offer to describe its various forms and concentrate on the objects between which the interaction occurs. For us it was important that the action, the action, be independent. So that he had his own parameters, so that he could be used separately. And it is this - the most important change in the new standard, which was not in the old versions.
And what was difficult in inventing this new? Were there any difficulties in the process of adopting the standard?
Yes, there were difficulties. For example, in the adoption process it was necessary to build a hierarchy of interaction. For example, in the “Islands” platform we give the opportunity to send a message. In fact, sending email is part of a more general interaction: communication. And now in schema.org it is. In a hierarchical structure, sending a message is part of the communication action. Another problem is that some interactions can have several meanings. Well, for example, you can check in for a flight at the airport, or you can check in at Foursquare. We in the working group thought for a long time - that is, there were literally several nightly meetings at which we discussed all these subtleties: how can we divide check in in the sense of check in for a flight and check in in the sense of check in on Foursquare.
We thought to present them with two different verbs, but it did not work out, and eventually we came to the following decision. If you, as part of the check in interaction, indicate only the place where it happened, then most likely you meant check in as check in on Foursquare or Facebook. And if you have some other object (like, for example, a flight), then this is just a check in for some flight, a flight. And this is exactly how it is presented now in the Island platform.
And tell me about schema.org in general. How it was formed and why it is needed at all.
Schema.org is a collection of dictionaries that all major consumers understand, the big search engines — Yandex, Google, Bing and Yahoo! .. It originated two years ago, but in fact its history is much deeper and longer. The fact is that the first attempts to use structured information were rather long. Yahoo! first big initiative Search Monkey was launched in 2008. After that, there were products from Google, Yandex, and Bing. But they all had such a problem: to describe some object for which you make a product, you need a standard, a dictionary. Some of these standards already existed. For example, microformats allowed to specify something. However, this was not enough, and therefore each search engine has come up with its own standard for different entities. And the result was the following situation. The webmaster needed to use different standards to interact with different search engines to describe the same object, i.e. the object is one, and the standards are different. More work, more unnecessary code, is very bad for the ecosystem and as a result is bad for everyone. Therefore, it was decided to combine their efforts in this area and make a single standard that everyone would understand. First of all, this is convenient for the webmaster, because he can, by specifying the corresponding tags once, establish interaction with all consumers, with all search engines.
Why is participation in schema.org important for us?
On the one hand, it is important for us to be aware of the current changes, it is important for us to understand what will be next, in order to inform the webmasters in time so that the problem of different standards for describing the same entities is gone, so that it does not exist. On the other hand, we thus have the opportunity to make changes to the dictionary ourselves, to offer some of our new entities that are important to our products and that are important to our webmasters. Since we are the only Russian-speaking members of the working group, we have the opportunity to convey to the working group feedback from our webmasters. For us, this is a big responsibility.
Are actions the first standard that was adopted by schema.org at the suggestion of Yandex?
No, this is not the first standard. The first standard to describe the target audience was adopted about six months ago. We at some point thought that it would be good and useful if the webmaster could indicate, tell us, for what target audience he created the page. For example, I have an online store. I sell goods for children: strollers, nipples, toys. If on each such page I, for example, point out that this wheelchair is intended for children from zero to one year old, and this wheelchair is for children from one year to three. This is useful information that we can use to improve our search. We looked at existing analogues, but realized that nothing of what is now, does not suit us. The existing analogues are either narrowly focused, or very complex, or not about that. And we realized that it was better to invent your own. Light, but, nevertheless, the standard meeting our requirements, and enclose it in the working group schema.org. We did just that. There were quite a few different discussions inside and out. In the process, we simplified it somewhat, slightly changed the composition and language to meet Western standards for describing the target audience: gender, age. And finally accepted.
As a person who is directly involved in the work of schema.org, tell us about the process in general. How is your work going?
This is a working group with four search engines. From each search engine there are representatives (usually several of them). There is a mailing list, there are weekly meetings (audio and video). Accordingly, we are in the evening (usually it happens at 10 pm, earlier on Fridays, but now it's good that on Thursdays) we meet and discuss current issues: current changes to the dictionaries, new suggestions, how to improve, how to communicate with the community, etc. Approximately twice a year, a personal meeting takes place to discuss the same issues, as well as some more complex issues that are difficult to discuss remotely. Moreover, due to the time difference (the maximum difference between us is 11-12 hours, when we have a late evening, they have an early morning) in this state not all issues can be discussed. For the external community, there are other means besides this: open mailing, open wiki. All this is implemented by means of W3C, and anyone can go there without any additional registration, without anything like that and communicate with the working group, make their own proposals, suggest their own changes. All this is considered, all these questions are answered.
Maybe you will tell us about some of our future plans in the work of schema.org?
The most important part, the most important for us now is the adoption of the second part of the description of interactions. The fact is that now only a list of basic actions and their parameterization have been adopted. In fact, the part about how the action can be implemented is not covered at all. This is an important part of the Island platform. This is the second part of the standard of actions, which is now discussed in schema.org, and, I hope, will be adopted soon. In addition, we have several other proposals related to our new products, but unfortunately I can’t talk about it.
Clear. Thank you very much, Sasha, for an interesting story! I hope that we will talk more about our work at schema.org.
Thank.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/190760/
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