Semantic HTML: Difference between revisions

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In order for search-engine spiders to be able to rate the significance of pieces of text they find in HTML documents, and also for those creating mashups and other hybrids, as well as for more automated agents as they are developed, the semantic structures that exist in HTML need to be widely and uniformly applied to bring out the meaning of published information.<ref name="Semantic_Web_Revisted">{{cite web|url=http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12614/1/Semantic_Web_Revisted.pdf|title=The Semantic Web Revisited|first1=Nigel|last1=Shadbolt|first3=Wendy|last3=Hall|first2=Tim|last2=Berners-Lee|publisher=IEEE Intelligent Systems|date=May–June 2006|accessdate=8 December 2010|format=PDF}}</ref>

While the true semantic web may depend on complex [[Resource Description Framework|RDF]] [[Ontology (information science)|ontologies]] and [[metadata]], every HTML document makes its contribution to the meaningfulness of the Web by the correct use of headings, lists, titles and other semantic markup wherever possible. This "plain" use of HTML has been called "Plain Old Semantic HTML" or POSH.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://microformats.org/wiki/posh |title=Plain Old Semantic HTML (POSH) |date=April 20, 2007 |website=Microformats Wiki |publisher=microformats community |accessdate=May 4, 2013}}</ref> The correct use of Web 2.0 'tagging' creates [[Folksonomy|folksonomies]] that may be equally or even more meaningful to many.<ref name="Semantic_Web_Revisted"/> [[HTML 5]] introduced new semantic elements such as <code>section</code>, <code>article</code>, <code>footer</code>, <code>progress</code>, <code>nav</code>, <code>aside</code>, <code>mark</code>, and <code>time</code>.<ref name="DSG">{{cite web|title=Understanding Semantic HTML and Its Applications for 2015 and Beyond|url=http://www.dallasseogeek.com/uncategorized/understanding-semantic-html-and-its-applications-for-2015-and-beyond/|publisher=Dallas SEO Geek|accessdate=26 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Robinson|first1=Mike|title=Let's Talk about Semantics|url=http://html5doctor.com/lets-talk-about-semantics/|publisher=HTML 5 Doctor|accessdate=26 October 2015}}</ref> Overall, the goal of the [[W3C]] is to slowly introduce more ways for browsers, developers, and crawlers to better distinguish between different types of data, allowing for benefits such as better display on browsers on different devices.<ref name="DSG" />

Presentational elements were not formally [[Deprecation|deprecated]] in HTML 4.01 and XHTML recommendations, but were recommended against. In HTML 5, some of those elements, such as <code>i</code><ref>{{cite web|title=HTML5 |at=Section 4.5.17: The i element |url=https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-level-semantics.html#the-i-element |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium }}</ref> and <code>b</code><ref>{{cite web|title=HTML5 |at=Section 4.5.18: The b element |url=https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-level-semantics.html#the-b-element |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium }}</ref> are still specified as their meaning has been clearly defined "as to be stylistically offset from the normal prose without conveying any extra importance".{{cite quote|date=July 2019}}