The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2011
Schema.org got rival search engines to share one markup vocabulary, so the web adopted it
In 2011 Google, Bing and Yahoo! published one shared structured-data vocabulary; webmasters mark up once and every major search engine reads it.
Google · Bing (Microsoft) · Yahoo!
the move
Before 2011, a webmaster who wanted rich search results had to choose among competing markup dialects, and the choice kept changing as each engine pushed its own. On June 2, 2011, Google, Bing and Yahoo! announced schema.org: a common vocabulary for structured data, in the spirit of the earlier sitemaps.org agreement. "A shared markup vocabulary makes it easier for webmasters to decide on a markup schema and get the maximum benefit for their efforts."
The design choice was cooperation instead of competition at the vocabulary layer: one site, one set of schemas, supported by all major search engines, free to use and open. The launch added more than a hundred new categories beyond what the engines had separately supported, from movies and music to products and places.
Because every major engine accepted the same tags, adoption became the low-risk choice: marking up for schema.org simultaneously improved results on Google, Bing and Yahoo, with Yandex joining the collaboration later. The vocabulary then grew into the semantic backbone of the web, used for everything from recipes and events to knowledge panels.
why it works
- Webmasters only need to learn and implement one vocabulary, not four.
- All major engines parse the same tags, so the payoff doesn't depend on one winner.
- It is free and open, with no licensing or gatekeeping.
- The sitemaps.org precedent showed competitors could cooperate this way.
what transfers
When buyers face a standards war, the sellers can end it: competitors that agree on one free format convert their rivalry into a distribution channel for the standard.
what came after
Schema.org is now the default structured-data vocabulary on the web, embedded in most CMSs and rich-results systems, and its JSON-LD form became the format Google recommends. All four search engines that launched it — joined later by Yandex — still parse it, and the project continues to publish new schemas under an open process.
references
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