Are data-* attributes and their values seen or used by google? [closed]

Question

I'm new to web programming, and I've read that one of the reasons to avoid using Ajax to deliver too much of your content is because that content is effectively hidden from search engines. This makes sense to me.

I've just come across the data- attribute in HTML5. There seems to be no limit to the length of the string value you can place in it. Does the data-* attribute suffer from the same fault as Ajaxing stuff? Does google store values in these attributes as meaningful page information, or is it just ignored?

(I don't have a specific problem, so I don't know whether this question meets stackoverflow's criteria, I'm just genuinely curious, and couldn't find much information on my own -- partly because I didn't know what to search for because I'm relatively new to the topic.)

Answer 1

You are right. The data attributes is not indexed or used by Google. Even though the attribute will be cached within a page, Google doesn't bother what the attribute or the value really means.

I'd say, it's meaningless to search engines per say. They are private to the page, so say, they'd be naturally ignored by search engine indexing bots.

I have read in the HTML5 specification where it says that the data attribute should not be used by third party applications, instead they should rely on microformats.

The specification says:

Custom data attributes are intended to store custom data private to the page or application, for which there are no more appropriate attributes or elements.