Microdata / Schema.org and HTTPS

[AnthonyMangia]

I have a quick question regarding Microdata / Schema.org files that are not hosted on secure connections.

I receive a receive a security error from my e-commerce site because the code references the schema over HTTP instead of HTTPS.<div< span="">itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product"></div<>This is not the first time I have run into this issue.  We also use MRSS schema for an RSS feed from yahoo and the same thing happens.<div< span="">xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss"></div<>The problem mainly lies in the fact that these schemas are not hosted over HTTPS. If you add HTTPS to the beginning of both you will get a security error.Just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this or similar issue and what the "best practices" are around this?Is it ok to obtain the schema directly and then host it on our server, over our secure connection?Thanks!

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Anthony,

I would suggest that this is just as applicable to Author or Organisation and really, I would not even be looking to index these secure pages & I would only use Author on a specific piece of content and organisation on a contact page or some such page about the business.

I have to say I am no expert on Schema but it was my understanding that the idea is to mark up individual pages to provide additional relevance. That is, your whole site does not contain microdata about the organisation and as such you would not want to display such a snippet of information. Likewise, your shopping cart is not published by a specific author.

Disclaimer, I am no expert here but will be interesting to see what other's have to say.

Marcus

[AnthonyMangia]

Thanks for the response. This is a definitely work around, but for Products / Offers only.

This doesn't help when applying Microdata / Schema to "global" site specific parameters, such as Author or Organization.(http://schema.org/Organization)Any one have any ideas of how this should be handled on a global level that doesn't involve turning the Microdata On / Off?

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Anthony, not sure about the self hosting thing, but if this specific schema is for the product pages, do you need to reference these on the non https version of your site (the product catalogue etc?)

So, use the products, reviews etc schema and reference them where needed and then drop the reference on all other pages where they are not needed and especially on the checkout pages where you are taking the user onto a secure connection.

If you take a look at some big players, play.com as an example, they use this approach.

Hope it helps!
Marcus