Study on Search Engines Reaction to the Metadata Records Created Based on Combined Method of Rich snippets and Linked Data

The purpose of this research was to find out the reaction of Web Search Engines to Metadata records created based on the combined method of Rich Snippets and Linked Data. 200 metadata records in two groups (100 records as the control group with the normal structure and, 100 records created based on microdata and implemented in RDF/XML as experimental group) extracted from the information gateway of Iranian Content National Consortium (INCN) were analyzed through an experimental approach. The metadata records of two groups were published on an independent website (www.rnikzad.ir), and were introduced to Google and Bing search engines directly. The using a checklist, the status of index ability and visibility of the published metadata records in two search engines were examined. Findings show all the element values of the metadata records of two groups indexed by Google and Bing, and were visible in the search results; but the records were not displayed in the search results semantically like the metadata records created in rich snippets methods only. In the other words, the spider-indexer software of Web search engines are not able to identify and index the metadata elements (tags) created based on microdata method and implemented in RDF (as the syntax of linked data method) and, the search engines cannot display the records in the search results semantically. So Web search engine are not adaptable to the standards of the semantic web.