Three Seas Economic Journal (Dec 2022)
USE OF SCHEMA.ORG MICRO-MARKUP IN E-COMMERCE PROJECTS
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to identify the most effective schema.org micro-markup schemes used in e-commerce projects. Methodology. The research included competitive intelligence among the leading online platforms operating in Europe in general and in Ukraine in particular. The study involved TOP-8 e-commerce projects in Ukraine and TOP-9 global cross-border marketplaces operating in Europe. The service validator.schema.org was chosen as the research tool. Results. The study showed that the most popular schema.org micro-markup format is JSON-LD. In general, 82.4% of the surveyed sites use JSON-LD microdata format. Some sites use two microdata formats: JSON-LD and Microdata. But none of the top online marketplaces use the RDFa micro-markup format. Popular marketplaces operating in Ukraine and Europe often use the same types of schema.org vocabulary. However, the frequency of using micro-markup by top marketplaces operating in Ukraine is much higher than the frequency of using micro-markup by top marketplaces operating in Europe. In addition, Ukrainian marketplaces use a much wider list of schema.org micro-markup properties than marketplaces operating in Europe. However, no online store has implemented the properties of advantages and disadvantages of goods recommended by Google in the scheme. Practical implications. The study suggests schema.org micro-markup schemes for homepage, category page, product page, about page, payment and delivery page, warranty and returns page, contact page and blog. The proposed templates of micro-markup schemes were validated using the validator.schema.org service. The study recommends using the JSON-LD format for semantic markup of website content. Value/originality. Implementation of effective semantic markup of site content will allow search engines to more accurately identify the information presented on the site. This, in turn, will improve the visibility of the online marketplace in the Search Engine Results Page of Google, Bing, Yahoo! etc.
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