Meta tags itemprop

Question

I am trying to include extracted structured data in my webpages.

I included this for description:

<meta itemprop="description" content="my description" />

However I realised that there is already a normal meta description on the page:

<meta name="description" content="my description" />

Is it ok to leave both of them or it is really necessary to merge them together maybe like:

<meta itemprop="description" name="description" content="" />

Solution

You should leave both of them. The Microdata Spec says:

If a meta element has an itemprop attribute, the name, http-equiv, and charset attributes must be omitted, and the content attribute must be present.

so it would be invalid to merge them.

Comments

[Michaël van de Weerd]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but the quoted text clearly states that the name, http-equiv and charset attributes must be omitted, so leaving both the itemprop and name attribute is invalid.

[WeNeigh]

@MichaëlvandeWeerd I parsed that statement similarly - I think the recommended practice then would be to have two meta tags, one with the itemprop and content, and another with name and content.

[Alohci]

@WeNeigh - Correct.