What Happened to Dublin Core as an SEO Factor?
There was a time when Dublin Core was the craze of on-site optimization. And then, it just faded away. As if it never existed. There were no write-ups on what happened to it or if it still works. This is what’s left of Dublin Core as I rummaged through the cracks.
What is Dublin Core?
Long story short, Dublin Core is like the earlier version of the now widely known and search-centric Schema.org. It is a metadata schema that originated way back 1995 in Dublin, Ohio.
How was it supposed to be implemented for SEO?
Dublin Core is a metadata schema that you implement much like how you would implement Schema.org. Here’s an example of the Dublin Core code:
<meta name="DC.Format" content="video/mpeg; 30 minutes">
<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" >
<meta name="DC.Publisher" content="SEO Hacker School" >
<meta name="DC.Title" content="HYP" >
So what’s the difference between Schema and Dublin Core?
Basically, Dublin Core and Schema.org are both metadata schemas but Dublin Core was created a long time ago and is used across many domains languages and business models while Schema.org is more prominently used on the web.
Schema.org is also created and heralded by the biggest search engines in the world today so naturally, Schema.org is their preferred metadata. I won’t be surprised to see sites with Schema.org ranking higher than ones with Dublin Core (there are no recorded experiments of this).
What happened with Dublin Core? It’s as if it suddenly disappeared?
Dublin Core has not disappeared. And if you’ll pay attention, you’ll still be able to see websites that have Dublin Core in them. It’s a matter of paying attention. Right now, Dublin Core is mostly used in libraries, universities and document-heavy fields such as law.
How does Google see Dublin Core now?
Dublin Core is still honored by Google because of its several important endorsements such as IETF, RFC, ISO Standard, NISO Standard. Although Schema.org is still the favored metadata schema when it comes to SEO.
Should you Implement Dublin Core in your Site? Will it help?
Yes and (maybe) no.
Having both Dublin Core and Schema.org in your website is assumed to help although this has never been tested. Some even go so far as to discourage it due to an assumed negative effect because of duplicate metadata concerns.
Thus far it has all been theory but no real testing. I personally would love to see a documented experiment of how having both Dublin Core and Schema in one site affected a website’s rankings – compared to having just one of each.
Where do you get the Dublin Core Code if you still want to try and implement it?
There’s the Simple Dublin Core generator that’s very handy when you’re planning to implement this on your site.
If you’re planning to study Dublin Core with its core elements, here’s the Index of Terms directly from the site.
Here’s the breakdown of its 15 Core Elements:
| Term Name: coverage | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Coverage |
| Definition: | The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant. |
| Comment: | Spatial topic and spatial applicability may be a named place or a location specified by its geographic coordinates. Temporal topic may be a named period, date, or date range. A jurisdiction may be a named administrative entity or a geographic place to which the resource applies. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the Thesaurus of Geographic Names [TGN]. Where appropriate, named places or time periods can be used in preference to numeric identifiers such as sets of coordinates or date ranges. |
| References: | [TGN] http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#coverage-006 |
| Term Name: creator | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Creator |
| Definition: | An entity primarily responsible for making the resource. |
| Comment: | Examples of a Creator include a person, an organization, or a service. Typically, the name of a Creator should be used to indicate the entity. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#creator-006 |
| Term Name: date | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Date |
| Definition: | A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource. |
| Comment: | Date may be used to express temporal information at any level of granularity. Recommended best practice is to use an encoding scheme, such as the W3CDTF profile of ISO 8601 [W3CDTF]. |
| References: | [W3CDTF] http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#date-006 |
| Term Name: description | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Description |
| Definition: | An account of the resource. |
| Comment: | Description may include but is not limited to: an abstract, a table of contents, a graphical representation, or a free-text account of the resource. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#description-006 |
| Term Name: format | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Format |
| Definition: | The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource. |
| Comment: | Examples of dimensions include size and duration. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the list of Internet Media Types [MIME]. |
| References: | [MIME] http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/ |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#format-007 |
| Term Name: identifier | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Identifier |
| Definition: | An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context. |
| Comment: | Recommended best practice is to identify the resource by means of a string conforming to a formal identification system. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#identifier-006 |
| Term Name: language | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Language |
| Definition: | A language of the resource. |
| Comment: | Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as RFC 4646 [RFC4646]. |
| References: | [RFC4646] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4646.txt |
| See: | http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4646.txt |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#language-007 |
| Term Name: publisher | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Publisher |
| Definition: | An entity responsible for making the resource available. |
| Comment: | Examples of a Publisher include a person, an organization, or a service. Typically, the name of a Publisher should be used to indicate the entity. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#publisher-006 |
| Term Name: relation | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Relation |
| Definition: | A related resource. |
| Comment: | Recommended best practice is to identify the related resource by means of a string conforming to a formal identification system. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#relation-006 |
| Term Name: rights | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Rights |
| Definition: | Information about rights held in and over the resource. |
| Comment: | Typically, rights information includes a statement about various property rights associated with the resource, including intellectual property rights. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#rights-006 |
| Term Name: source | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Source |
| Definition: | A related resource from which the described resource is derived. |
| Comment: | The described resource may be derived from the related resource in whole or in part. Recommended best practice is to identify the related resource by means of a string conforming to a formal identification system. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#source-006 |
| Term Name: subject | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Subject |
| Definition: | The topic of the resource. |
| Comment: | Typically, the subject will be represented using keywords, key phrases, or classification codes. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#subject-007 |
| Term Name: title | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Title |
| Definition: | A name given to the resource. |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#title-006 |
| Term Name: type | |
|---|---|
| Label: | Type |
| Definition: | The nature or genre of the resource. |
| Comment: | Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the DCMI Type Vocabulary [DCMITYPE]. To describe the file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource, use the Format element. |
| References: | [DCMITYPE] http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-type-vocabulary/ |
| Type of Term: | Property |
| Version: | http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/#type-006 |
Tips for Keeps: Don’t take my word for it. Try out Dublin Core for yourself – either in a test site and see if it helps your rankings!
