Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
When to Use Schema vs. Facebook Open Graph?
-
I have a client who for regulatory reasons cannot engage in any social media: no Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ accounts. No social sharing buttons allowed on the site. The industry is medical devices.
We are in the process of redesigning their site, and would like to include structured markup wherever possible. For example, there are lots of schema types under MedicalEntity: http://schema.org/MedicalEntity
Given their lack of social media (and no plans to ever use it), does it make sense to incorporate OG tags at all? Or should we stick exclusively to the schemas documented on schema.org?
-
Serendipitous timing - this article was posted yesterday about using mark-up, and how Open Graph and Schema.org are used, and why to use both:
Facebook Open Graph serves its purpose well, but it doesn’t provide the detailed information search engines need to improve the user experience. A single web page may have many components, and it may talk about more than one thing. Even if you mark up your content for Facebook Open Graph, schema.org provides an additional way to provide more detail about particular entities on the page.
http://searchengineland.com/schema-org-7-things-for-seos-to-consider-post-hummingbird-172163
-
I personally would use both. They way that I look at it with the OG tags is that you are controlling the consistency of the brand across platforms that you do not officially support. This is very much in my mind the same thing as making a page display correctly in older version of IE.
-
OG and Schema can live in the wild together. They are both ways to show information around the entities which they describe.
IMDB is using both OG and Schema to mark up their data:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/ -
Thanks, Craig. Do you know if any of the OG and schema tags would duplicate or conflict? I see a lot of documentation about using one or the other, but not how to use both harmoniously.
-
Thanks Keri, interesting example. While the GE Healthcare site is more commercial in intent, I like how they've treated the share functionality using the node icon. Subtle, yet shareable
-
I haven't checked in depth, the regulations are with the FDA and they aren't the most up-to-date with social media practices! No competitors are using OG yet, but their sites are also very under-optimized.
-
This may be way over-the-top, but have you checked if OG tags would violate the regulations at all, or if they could potentially be a violation down the road? Granted, even though I haven't read the regulations, I don't think it should...but it's just something I'd double-check. I could see a potential problem if the wording is ambiguous and a competitor wants to stir up trouble for you.
-
Given that other people may share those pages, I would incorporate both OG and Schema on the site.
-
Just because you can't share doesn't mean people aren't going to share it on FB. Just yesterday, I shared http://www3.gehealthcare.com/en/Products/Categories/Accessories_and_Supplies/Adventure_Series_for_CT/Pirate_Island on FB with my friends. I don't have formal experience in this area, but did want to point that out. There was an article on slate.com about the design of these, and I went looking for more information, and found that page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
For FAQ Schema markup, do we need to include every FAQ that is on the page in the markup, or can we use only selected FAQs?
The website FAQ page we are working on has more than 50 FAQs. FAQ Schema guidelines say the markup must be an exact match with the content. Does that mean all 50+ FAQs must be in the mark-up? Or does that mean the few FAQs we decided to put in the markup are an exact match?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PKI_Niles0 -
Using the same image across the site?
Hi just wondering i'm using the same image across 20 pages which are optimized for SEO purposes. I was wondering is there issues with this from SEO standpoint? Will Google devalue the page because the same image is being used? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowork2140 -
Using CSS to hide anchor text
Hi all, In my website, I would like to use CSS to set the anchor text to "website design service"(my company provides web design service) but show the button text as "website", due to some artistic reasons. Therefore, the anchor text for the link is "website design service" but what users see is "websites". Does this sound spammy to Google? Is it a risky move that might hurt my SEO? Looking for some advises here. Thank you very much. Best,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Competitor Title, can I use the same???
there are some pages, my competitor is ranking well and also, we have done page optimization it is 100% for page title keywords as im going to use the same title of the competitor? Will this affect me? Pls suggest wht should I do..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rahim1190 -
Block in robots.txt instead of using canonical?
When I use a canonical tag for pages that are variations of the same page, it basically means that I don't want Google to index this page. But at the same time, spiders will go ahead and crawl the page. Isn't this a waste of my crawl budget? Wouldn't it be better to just disallow the page in robots.txt and let Google focus on crawling the pages that I do want indexed? In other words, why should I ever use rel=canonical as opposed to simply disallowing in robots.txt?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YairSpolter0 -
Do I need to use canonicals if I will be using 301's?
I just took a job about three months and one of the first things I wanted to do was restructure the site. The current structure is solution based but I am moving it toward a product focus. The problem I'm having is the CMS I'm using isn't the greatest (and yes I've brought this up to my CMS provider). It creates multiple URL's for the same page. For example, these two urls are the same page: (note: these aren't the actual urls, I just made them up for demonstration purposes) http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Omnipress
http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/bossman.cmsx (I know this is terrible, and once our contract is up we'll be looking at a different provider) So clearly I need to set up canonical tags for the last two pages that look like this: http://www.omnipress.com/boss-man" /> With the new site restructure, do I need to put a canonical tag on the second page to tell the search engine that it's the same as the first, since I'll be changing the category it's in? For Example: http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/ will become http://www.website.com/home/MEET-OUR-TEAM/team-leaders/boss-man My overall question is, do I need to spend the time to run through our entire site and do canonical tags AND 301 redirects to the new page, or can I just simply redirect both of them to the new page? I hope this makes sense. Your help is greatly appreciated!!0 -
Schema.org Implementation: "Physician" vs. "Person"
Hey all, I'm looking to implement Schema tagging for a local business and am unsure of whether to use "Physician" or "Person" for a handful of doctors. Though "Physician" seems like it should be the obvious answer, Schema.org states that it should refer to "A doctor's office" instead of a physician. The properties used in "Physician" seem to apply to a physician's practice, and not an actual physician. Properties are sourced from the "Thing", "Place", "Organization", and "LocalBusiness" schemas, so I'm wondering if "Person" might be a more appropriate implementation since it allows for more detail (affiliations, awards, colleagues, jobTitle, memberOf), but I wanna make sure I get this right. Also, I'm wondering if the "Physician" schema allows for properties pulled from the "Person" schema, which I think would solve everything. For reference: http://schema.org/Person http://schema.org/Physician Thanks, everyone! Let me know how off-base my strategy is, and how I might be able to tidy it up.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mudbugmedia0 -
800 Number vs. Local Phone
I have a client with multiple locations throughout the US. They are currently using different 800 numbers on their site for their different locations. As they try to optimize their local presence but submitting to local directories, we are trying to determine two things: Does having a local number reroute to an 800 number devalue the significance of it being a local number (I've never heard of this, but someone told them it did) Locality and consistency are important. Assuming they can't remove the 800 numbers from the site, are they better off keeping the 800 numbers on their site and using local numbers every else online OR just using the 800 numbers for all of their local listings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caleone0