Schema.org microformatting - itemprop within href tag?

[ufmedia]

I'm trying to implement microformatting on the site, specifically for the cities where we are active.  I'm hoping this will help us rank in local search.  This is what I have been doing:

op="addressLocality">City Name

In Google's Rich Snippets Testing Tool, that yields this:

addresslocality = City Name

However, I've also done this:

• City Name

In Google's tool, that gave me this:

addresslocality

text = City Name
href = http://www.domain.com/webpage

So which is better?

[zigojacko]

What are you trying to achieve? Do you have a page per location on your webstite and on each, this is where you're implementing geo/location based schema?

Which is better depends on its purpose, schema markup is intended to provide as much information to search engines as possible, anything of relevance to a website's products or services.

It is likely what you're after is the organisation markup, this can also appear in Google Places listings too. Look at the Microdata link at the bottom of that page and implement what is relevant to your website from there.

Currently rich snippet markup won't have a direct influence on rankings, however the correct implementation will make results from your website appear more prominent in search results.

It would be worth looking over the specification for Schema's organisation / local business markup too so you can see what is available to you.

Something such as the following should be relevant to what you are trying to achieve...

Business Name

Address Line 1

Address Line 2

City / Town

County / State

Post / Zip Code

777 888 999

me@mywebsite.com

http://www.mywebsite.com

Anything that you require testing to see if it is implemented correctly and will appear in the search results as you intend can be done with Google's Rich Snippet Testing Tool or this Microdata Tool.

Hope that points you in the right direction for now.

[ufmedia]

Yes, we have individual pages based on location.  I want internal links to those pages to carry microformatting.  I put the itemprop attribute within a tag, which seems to work fine, but putting the itemprop within an <a>tag seems to apply to both the text (i.e. the city name) and the URL of the page.  I'm wondering if the second approach is better.  </a>

[zigojacko]

Rich Snippet Markup should be implemented on the page containing the information not on links pointing to the pages.

Difficult to really advise on which approach would be best because from what I can gather, it doesn't sound like you're implementing the markup correctly.

Better to mark up the content on the location pages themselves with the address, locality, city/town etc as per my example above.

Might be worth reading up on exactly how Schema data works.

[ufmedia]

I've read schema.org quite a bit, and I know that microformats are really meant to be used on individual pages, but I didn't know it was considered inappropriate to use them on internal links.  I'll rethink this.  Thanks!

[zigojacko]

You're welcome