The W3C just published its latest draft of the HTML 5 standards (www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/). I’m probably not the only one following Markup Language Standards when it comes to SEO, so here are some interesting elements:
- HTML 5 definitely has an XML-style of presenting Information. This structure could make search engine friendliness easier than ever.
- There is a new Header tag, semantically equivalent to a H1, which could contain long structured texts. In this header tag, you can have H1, H2, H3 elements, paragraphs, hard-coded links (oh yeah!), versioning info, copyright info, etc.
- The new section element, “article,” should simplify categorization of the content on blogs, news sites, forums, etc. This will help reduce the number of divs necessary for a good display of information and make cleaner, lighter codes.
- New phrase elements, such as “Time” and “Meter,” will help build a “respectable/librarian” feel to a page (giving some trust?).
- Other phrase elements, such as “marked,” will make the “strong” and “em” tags seem boring.
- A new interactive element, “details,” that can hide extra information until activated. This one can be used for “aggressive” or “clean” SEO; we all know how hidden elements work…
- Embedded media elements such as video and audio will be easy to optimize. The tags “video” and “audio” are self-sufficient and the alternative descriptions, for legacy browser and accessibility, are included within those tags (not necessary to use a “noscript”). Those tags must be my favorite in HTML 5. Here’s how clean it could be: (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-html5/)
Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman,Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens: …
There are tons of other interesting elements in HTML 5, and I strongly suggest to webmasters and SEOs alike to keep a close watch one that language. Sadly, we know that some popular browsers can take a lot of time evolving to new standards, so it could take years before HTML 5 is implemented and practical…
