RDFa, short for Resource Description Framework in Attributes, is a W3C recommendation for adding linked data to HTML and XML documents through attributes. RDFa Lite is a simplified subset with five attributes that covers most SEO use. Google supports RDFa for structured data, though it is far less common on marketing sites than JSON-LD.
The core attributes
RDFa Lite uses vocab to set the vocabulary, typeof to declare a type, property to mark a value, resource to give an entity an identifier, and prefix to declare short names for other vocabularies. Like Microdata, the attributes sit on the elements that hold the content.
<div vocab="https://schema.org/" typeof="Organization">
<span property="name">Quarrybell</span>
<a property="url" href="https://www.quarrybell.example">Website</a>
</div>Where you still meet it
RDFa grew out of the semantic web community and is common in some CMS platforms, government and library sites, and publishing systems that mix several vocabularies. Its ability to combine vocabularies in one document is its main advantage over Microdata. For a typical SaaS site it adds complexity without a search benefit over JSON-LD.
RDFa and Open Graph
The Open Graph protocol used for social previews was built on RDFa ideas, which is why its meta tags use a property attribute. Those tags are a separate system from Schema.org markup and are read by social platforms, not used for Google rich results.
Example
Auditing a CMS that outputs RDFa
A B2B company, Sablethorn, runs its resource library on a CMS whose default theme emits RDFa for every article. Its own developers add JSON-LD for BlogPosting. The validator now shows two Article-like items per page. The team disables the theme's RDFa output so a single, complete JSON-LD entity remains.
Common mistakes
Double markup from a CMS default
Platforms that emit RDFa automatically can conflict with hand-built JSON-LD. Check what the platform outputs before adding your own.
Questions
Only if it causes conflicts or is hard to maintain. Google supports RDFa, so a correct, complete implementation can stay. Convert when you are already rebuilding templates.
