As schema.org is relatively new, perhaps this question will promote more discussion than a definitive answer. Either way, hopefully some learning from others' application/experience can be gained.
Having studied the http://schema.org documentation pages – and whilst there seems to be an extensive array of properties (read: itemprop
attributes) available to enrich a blog post, there seems to be some inconsistencies and 'grey areas' with regard to the best approach to mark up blog comments. Let me provide an example:
The schema.org documentation for blogs can be found on within Thing > CreativeWork > Blog and for reference, a blog post lives within Thing > CreativeWork > Article > BlogPosting
So far, the documentation and markup examples on the aforementioned pages provide enough reference to format a blog index page, and the bulk of content within an individual post (author
, pubDate
, articleBody
, interactionCount
, etc.)
It is when we start to look at individual UserInteraction elements (blog comments) within the interactionCount
that things get a little vague. The documentation leads us through to Thing > Event > UserInteraction > UserComments, and is described as 'User interaction: A comment about an item.' However all of the suggested properties of UserInteraction
are geared towards a physical event.
The only property that appears to be relevant to a blog comment in this schema's documentation is description
; which could be used for the comment body. What feels lacking is some specific context for user comments about a blog post. There's also no evidence of example markup for said comments, even a search for 'comments' on the site doesn't seem to yield any clarity.
Has anyone marked up their blog using schema.org – and how did you approach/solve this?
I'll also raise this matter via the schema.org feedback form and update this post if anything comes to light.
Have a look at the examples here http://schema.org/WebPage and notice how the reviews are used for the Books.
You can do the same for Comments in Article, here's an example:
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
<-- Article content -->
<div itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments">
<meta itemprop="discusses" content="A masterpiece of literature" />
<span itemprop="creator">John Doe</span>
<time itemprop="commentTime" datetime="2011-05-08T19:30">May 8, 7:30pm</time>
<span itemprop="commentText">I really enjoyed this book. It captures the essential
challenge people face as they try make sense of their lives.</span>
</div>
<div itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments">
<meta itemprop="discusses" content="A masterpiece of literature" />
<span itemprop="creator">John Doe</span>
<time itemprop="commentTime" datetime="2011-05-08T19:30">May 8, 7:30pm</time>
<span itemprop="commentText">I really enjoyed this book. It captures the essential
challenge people face as they try make sense of their lives.</span>
</div>
</div>