Are building a page using HTML 5 better for seo?

[jimpannell]

Very general question really, but does anyone know whether Google sees html5 pages as being superior in any way to xhtml or html 4.x pages?

[SlavaRybalka]

I haven't hear anything clear about that yet, but I would definitely use schema.org standards and HTML5.

I predict that in the future Google will be considering websites that use older versions of HTML and older technologies as stale or neglected, especially with a combination of other signals.

So the answer is: maybe not right now, but in future you will most probably benefit from using HTML 5.

Transfer all your existing sites to that format right now.

[jimpannell]

Hey Slava

That's kind of what I thought as well. Using the latest standards compliant code could be an indication that a site owner is serious about the site being a) up to date from a technology viewpoint and b) accessilble to as many devices as possible.

Cheers

Jim