Examples of Schema.org microdata markups for Blogger comments. Passes Rich Snippets Testing Tool!

In the last few weeks, I have proven two things here on this blog:

• I have proven that it is entirely possible to markup Blogger blogs with Schema.org microdata markups and
• I have also proven that precise implementations of Schema.org microdata markups can also help Blogger blogs look so much better in Google+.

Today I want you to explore the possibility of marking up Blogger comments with Schema.org microdata. At the end of this post, we would see whether or not such Schema.org microdata markups can ‘pass’ Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool. Let’s start our exploration with Schema.org and see what kind of properties that we can possibly use for our Blogger comments.

Schema.org microdata that we possibly can use for Blogger comments

Before we go ahead, come and think for a while. Where can we find our Blogger comments?

Blogger comments exist only (if there are any) in our blog posts. If we take a look at Schema.org documentations, we can see that Schema.org has provided one particular itemscope element specifically for blog posts. It has many properties and one of them is specifically for comments.

Can we use it? Perhaps but I certainly believe that we can use it.

itemprop="comment"

Schema.org describes the above microdata attribute as ‘Comments, typically from users’. The description is a little vague but I believe we should annotate each comment with the above Schema.org microdata. The big question is, where exactly?

After taking a few more good looks at Schema.org documentations, I can see that there is one Schema.org itemscope element that we can use and it comes with a few more Schema.org itemtype attributes.

itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments"

In another word, we have to find the HTML tag that wraps around all of our Blogger comment elements and annotate it with the above Schema.org microdata.

itemprop="commentText"

Schema.org describes the above microdata attribute as ‘The text of the UserComment’. In another word, we have to locate the body of each comment and annotate it with the above Schema.org microdata.

itemprop="commentTime"

Schema.org describes the above microdata attribute as ‘The time at which the UserComment was made’. I think it is self-explanatory. We just have to find the timestamp of each comment and annotate it with the above Schema.org microdata.

itemprop="creator"

Schema.org describes the above microdata attribute as ‘The creator/author of this CreativeWork or UserComments’. Pretty easy to understand, isn’t it? Just identify the author of each comment and annotate it with the above Schema.org microdata.

itemprop="discusses"

Schema.org describes the above microdata attribute as something that ‘Specifies the CreativeWork associated with the UserComment’. I think this is pretty easy to understand too. Comments normally contain conversations about each blog post and the title of each blog post matters a lot to our visitors. It makes sense to populate the above attribute with title of the blog post.

itemprop="replyToUrl"

Schema.org describes the above microdata attribute as ‘The URL at which a reply may be posted to the specified UserComment’. Oh boy! Blogger comments do not actually have unique reply-to URLs unless if you’re using that one particular Blogger hack. However, each comment posted on Blogger does have a unique URL and I believe we can annotate each URL with the above Schema.org microdata.

Alright! Let’s say that I have marked up my Blogger comments with all of the above Schema.org microdata. How do they look like on Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool? Does it ‘pass’ the test?

Yes!

Blogger comments marked up with Schema.org. Passes Rich Snippets Testing Tool!

Conclusion

It is entirely possible to mark up Blogger comments with Schema.org microdata. It takes some time to understand everything but eventually you should be able to mark up your own Blogger blog with Schema.org microdata. I don’t mind showing you how to do it in the near future but I will only do so after I had received some genuine requests from you folks. No requests, no how-to. :)