Add rich microdata markup to breadcrumbs

[netweb]

Introduce 'microdata' support for breadcrumbs.

Microdata is supported (and preferred over microformats) by the major search engines Bing, Google & Yahoo.

References: ​HTML5 microdata spec | ​Google Microdata Breadcrumbs & ​Bing Microdata Breadcrumbs

[netweb]

First pass

[alexvorn2]

my opinion is that is a minor improvement..
:)

[jaredatch]

One question to ask is, if we are going to use Microdata here, should be use it in other places as well? User profiles, topics, etc? Would it be worth expanding the scope of this?

[sooskriszta]

Replying to jaredatch:

One question to ask is, if we are going to use Microdata here, should be use it in other places as well? User profiles, topics, etc? Would it be worth expanding the scope of this?

Might be better to use schema.org markup wherever possible. Google and Bing seem to favor that lately.

[jaredatch]

I agree. I've had to work with microdata a fair amount for client sites and schema.org is indeed the defacto standard.

[netweb]

Indeed the ideal scenario would be to use schema.org though in this instance there is are a few issues with the ​http://schema.org/WebPage properties for the 'Breadcrumb' schema.

Detailed info can be found in the following:
​http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Breadcrumbs
​http://www.w3.org/2011/webschema/track/issues/10

I have attached another patch 2269.2.diff and this patch uses RDF rather than Microdata as the site I originally implemented this uses lots of custom HTML with bbp_breadcrumb & bbp_parse_args and without changing lots off bbPress default CSS using the RDF format keeps changes to a minimum.

We can punt this ticket to 'Future Release' whilst waiting for an updated Breadcrumb schema via schema.org or implement this and then later down the track update to schema.org schema once an updated schema is ratified.

I also agree that expanding the the use of 'metadata' around bbPress with schema's via schema.org is a good thing.

If you test this patch you can test the results on how Google ​sees this data here.

[alex-ye]

hmm, seems interesting ... I am thinking if we could separate the micro-data attributes from the original HTML, so we can make it work with any system like micro-data, micro-formats ... etc

This also will make theme designers more control about which system they prefer to use or if they don't at all.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Patch looks good, but I'm apprehensive to commit to any standard without doing more research.

Moving to 2.5.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Moving to 2.6 to help limit the work needed to get 2.5 out the door.

[netweb]

Kind of off topic but related to author microdata for any other future referenced tickets.
via @shrewdies on bbpress.org ​Google Webmaster 'rel=author' FAQ

[netweb]

Another related doc, a proposal for a schema.org 'Discussions' schema for 'forums', though I expect it will be quite a while before it gets into the spec.

​http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/DiscussionSchema

[johnjamesjacoby]

Bump to 2.7.

[inetbizo]

Says milestone 2.7 is due in 5 weeks. @netweb patch ​https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/attachment/ticket/2269/2269.2.diff the one to test?

[netweb]

@inetbizo The patch needs refreshing and a quick glance around the resources I think this will get bumped to at least 2.8, possibly just 'Future Release' until a 'spec' can be agreed upon.

There is also some merit in @alex-ye idea above " I am thinking if we could separate the micro-data attributes from the original HTML, so we can make it work with any system like micro-data, micro-formats ... etc"

The W3C made their first 'breadcrumb' commit to the HTML 5.1 Draft spec two days ago and that is vastly different to the way things currently are in bbPress or the patches attached to this ticket.

When I get a chance I'll take another look and update the references here in this ticket.

[inetbizo]

@netweb I was poking around at your function and hook list. You do have a before and after hook at each section.

I would propose there is further documentation on HOWTO extend microdata/microformatting using theme hooks by copying the plugin theme to our theme folder and extending our function files for schema data.

I see you are already a member of our forums. It's quite dead aside from our two internal users and we don't mind at all being a test case. We do use YOAST breadcrumbs and our forum(s) use page shortcodes.

The entire theme, so far, has used hatom. bbpress sorely lacks many attributes of hatom as a starting point. We also use WP-MULTI. I do have development blogs that can use a different theme and entirely new microformat/microdata test case.

I'm excited to contribute as much as I can to the best forum plugin for WP!

[inetbizo]

​http://html5doctor.com/a-little-more-conversation-with-dialog/

[inetbizo]

​http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/interactive-elements.html#the-dialog-element if you used dialog, might need to notify w3c to not deprecate the dialog tag.

[inetbizo]

I would then wrap that in an HTML5 <main> tag. See ​http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/grouping-content.html#the-main-element

[netweb]

Replying to inetbizo:

I would propose there is further documentation on HOWTO extend microdata/microformatting using theme hooks by copying the plugin theme to our theme folder and extending our function files for schema data.

I think we need a few more hooks in bbPress before this could be acheived at the moment.

The dialog element has nothing to do with this and in the W3 case per definition:

"The dialog element represents a part of an application that a user interacts with to perform a task, for example a dialog box, inspector, or window."

As to what gets used for the actual 'discussions' of topics/replies there are quite a few different theories on how to do this as outlined ​here, there is a proposal for schema.org that you can check out ​here.

One thing to understand here is these schema proposals move very slowly and take a long time before being accepted in any of the 'microdata' formats.

[inetbizo]

Replying to netweb:

I think we need a few more hooks in bbPress before this could be acheived at the moment.

At least right now there are before and after hooks for title, description, author, etc, right?

One thing to understand here is these schema proposals move very slowly and take a long time before being accepted in any of the 'microdata' formats.

Then how about building up documentation on the before and after hooks and practical application for hatom? I see a lot of search results and discussion about broken hatom for bbpress and google rich snippet tools. =)

[inetbizo]

I also see google display forum results, differently. 1st topic and then several threads. I wonder what they are looking for in their recipe?

[johnjamesjacoby]

Bumping all 2.7 to 2.8 milestone.

[netweb]

Moving this to "future release", a quick glance at the references listed above reveals that basically nothing has happened in a long time towards ratifying any standard for breadcrumbs, on the other side of this though is accessibility and breadcrumbs has made some 'standards' progress, lets come back this if a standard ever does come along.

Related: #2635 Accessibility: Templates - Breadcrumbs

[netweb]

Related: ​#WP25455

[netweb]

Related: ​#WP30783

[netweb]

FYI: Jetpack just added schema.org to their breadcrumbs ​https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/pull/3528

[netweb]

See also ​https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/breadcrumbs

I've advocated for Microformats for a long time, as there's been no movement in ~4 years for breadcrumbs by Microformats I think we should use schema.org's format, also webschema.org is the now from what I've just read a newer version of schema.org, schema.org development is now on GitHub ​https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg

See also ​https://schema.org/docs/howwework.html ​https://schema.org/docs/about.html

[espellcaste]

I'm owning this ticket and I plan to provide an updated patch for 2.6 or 2.7 in coming days.

I'm going to use ​https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/breadcrumbs as you suggested @netweb, also because I believe it's considered the standard now.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Let's do this in 2.7.

[netweb]

via ​https://wptavern.com/google-search-console-adds-breadcrumbs-report-sends-out-warnings-for-structured-data-errors

Google Search Console Adds Breadcrumbs Report, Sends Out Warnings for Structured Data Errors