html - Hide Microdata property value in 'content' attribute?

Question

I work on a website that recently had Schema.org markup added to it, but I think it is being used wrong.

Schema.org gives the example of

<span itemprop="name">Generic Name Here</span>

Our website implemented it in the following way

<span itemprop="name" content="Generic Name Here"></span>

Is the second way, our way, considered cloaking? We display the data to the user but at a different point and it is not marked up with itemprop.

Answer 1

In HTML5, the content attribute is only allowed on the meta element. Microdata doesn’t define it as global attribute either. But RDFa extends HTML to make content a global attribute.

According to your example, you are using Microdata. So you shouldn’t use the content attribute for span.

Microdata defines a way to add name-value pairs without having to mark up visible content: Microdata extends HTML5 to allow meta and link in body (in the future, this will be defined in the HTML5 spec directly; see the "Contexts in which this element can be used" for link and meta in the HTML 5.1 Editor’s Draft).

So instead of

<span itemprop="name" content="Generic Name Here"></span>

you should use

<meta itemprop="name" content="Generic Name Here" />

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For schema.org, see Missing/implicit information: use the meta tag with content:

This technique should be used sparingly. Only use meta with content for information that cannot otherwise be marked up.