Are the tags from schema.org beneficial for SEO?

[RobM416]

I just came across schema.org, which has a massive list of attribute tags that can be added to HTML code, presumable with the benefit of giving search engines clear signals about your content -- and by extension, presumably boosting the ranking of good-quality content sites.

Many of the tags point back to schema.org for definitions of content types.

Since it's the first time I've seen this, I thought I'd ask the question: Do the tags listed at schema.org carry any weight with Google, or is this a self-promotional effort by schema.org to become an arbiter of SEO and content encoding?

Thanks folks.

[RobM416]

I may have answered part of my own question. Apparently schema.org is run by Google in conjunction with Yahoo/Bing, so I guess it's legit.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-schemaorg-search-engines.html

That leaves the question: Does it do any good?

[ResslerMotors]

I've personally had good results with it for local search, but it's main purpose right now is for rich snippets.  I like to use schema-creator.org to generate the code for me.

[watkinsheating]

I think the seo value will grow as schema becomes more widely adopted. The search engines cannot weight it heavily right now because it is not widely used and therefore not a good predictor of relevance. It certainly doesn't hurt and will help to future-proof your site against algo changes down the road.

[donford]

It also helps define product specifications for feed searches.. "froogle" -> "google base" -> now "google products" and other shopping sites can use that info to return your products with higher relevancy based on the users choices.

[RobM416]

Thanks everyone.

Looks like the biggest benefit at the moment would be for product vendors.

I can't see any obvious places to use these identifiers if my content is largely definition-based. (e.g., a page where I define a specific accounting term or procedure.) Am I missing something?