When was the last time you remembered Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agreeing on something? Well don’t think too hard because it just happened! In a rare display of mutual consensus, the three search giants got together to announce the launch of schema.org a website created in support of a common language for structured data markup on web pages.

As told by the search engines, schema will be a one stop resource for webmasters looking to add markup to their pages. Schema.org aims to assist website owners and developers to learn more about structured data that will allow them to edit and fine tune the appearance of their pages in a way that will make it more search engine friendly (namely, Google, Bing and Yahoo).

Google said that they realized that a lot of time and efforts go into adding a markup to pages and doing it differently for each search engine can be quite a task. That’s why the three search companies for once came together to support a common set of schemas, just like they did back in 2006 to support a common standard for sitemaps. Also the search giant said that with feedback from webmaster they will publish new schemas for sites to use and, in turn, expand the list of queries with rich results on a regular basis.

The Schema.org main page states:

“This site provides a collection of schema, i.e., html tags that webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways that are recognized by major search providers since search engines including Bing, Google and Yahoo! rely on these markups to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages.”

Also since the majority of the search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing use this markup to present better search results to their user’s, schema will help users find what they’re looking for easily and webmasters present their pages in a better way.

To make things easier for the webmasters, the schemas have been grouped by types in a hierarchy with over 100 categories. Types include creative works, such as books, movies, or audio recordings; places, such as a local business or restaurant; persons; reviews; or products.

By using these schemas webmasters will help search engines understand their pages better rather than them having to guess whether a website containing the word “Die Hard” refers to a movie, or batteries. In return the webmasters can benefit from their pages being displayed more often for the associated keywords.

schema.org surely gives site owners a brilliant way to improve the presentation of their sites on search pages of  not only Google, but also Bing and Yahoo! and perhaps some more search engines in the near future.

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