Are data- * attributes and their values ​​visible or used by Google?

Question

I am new to web programming and I read that one of the reasons to avoid using Ajax to deliver too much of your content is that this content is effectively hidden from search engines. That makes sense to me.

I just met the data attribute in HTML5. There seems to be no limit to the length of the string value that you can place in it. Does the data- * attribute have the same error as Ajaxing? Does the Google store value in these attributes have meaningful page information or is it simply ignored?

(I don’t have a specific problem, so I don’t know if this question meets the stackoverflow criteria, I’m just sincerely curious and could not find a lot of information on my own - partly because I know what to look for, because I'm relatively new to this topic .)

Answer 1

You're right. Data attributes are not indexed or used by Google. Although the attribute will be cached inside the page, Google is not worried about what the attribute or value means.

I would say that this is pointless for search engines. They are closed to the page, so say that they are naturally ignored by search engines that index bots.

I read in the HTML5 specification which states that the data attribute should not be used by third-party applications, instead they should rely on microformats.

The specification states:

User data attributes are intended to store confidential user data of a page or application for which there are no more suitable attributes or elements.