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Mahalo Adds Microformats
A microformat is a web-based approach to semantic markup that seeks to re-use existing XHTML and HTML tags to convey metadata and other attributes. This approach allows information intended for end-users to also be automatically processed by software.
2026 note: that sentence is doing more work now than it did in 2008. Back then "automatically processed by software" meant a browser plugin drawing a little map pin next to an address. Mahalo was a human-powered search engine trying to make its listings legible to machines, which felt like a nice-to-have at the time—good for search engines, good for browser extensions, mostly invisible to anyone who wasn't Mike Kaply.
Seventeen years later I'm running a Shopify app called Entitled that does the same job for product pages, except the software reading the markup now is an LLM deciding whether to recommend your product to a shopper, and "nice-to-have" has become the difference between showing up in an AI answer and not existing at all. Same idea, same instinct, much higher stakes. More on that below.
23 Comments about “Mahalo Adds Microformats”
- April 23rd, 2008 at 6:04 am
[...] Mahalo Adds Microformats. Cool. asides — Tags: mahalo, microformats — Panayotis @ 09:04 [...]
- Mahalo Adds Microformats Says:April 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
[...] the people powered search engine, just rolled out microformats for certain search results. Sean Percival told me about the rollout earlier this evening, and I had to admit a shocking amount of ignorance when I asked what he meant [...]
- April 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
[...] …zwar vorerst nur hCard, adr und rel-license auf einer sehr geringen Anzahl von Seiten, aber immerhin ein Anfang. (via) [...]
- April 23rd, 2008 at 10:49 am
[...] the people powered search engine, just rolled out microformats for certain search results. Sean Percival told me about the rollout earlier this evening, and I had to admit a shocking amount of ignorance when I asked what he meant [...]
- April 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
[...] Mahalo Adds Microformats Firefox with Mike Kaply’s Operator add-on is an easy way to get into Microformats. [...]
- April 23rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
[...] uninspiring, Mahalo announces the launch of "Microformats." (Nofollow added to the link, cos Jason Calacanis has once again said he doesn’t value [...]
- Mohamed Marwen Meddah Says:April 23rd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Great work guys; I love what you’re doing with Mahalo.
- April 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
[...] announced this yesterday and posted about it today and Sean Percival also blogged the good news, as did Mashable: Mahalo has begun adding Microformats to our [...]
- April 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
[...] Looking for a good how-to on importing the data? See Sean Percival’s blog post. [...]
- Blern Says:April 23rd, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Blern Most Popular… This post has reached the Top 10 Most Popular list of blog and news articles on Blern.com…
- April 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
[...] Mahalo has rolled out support for microformats. [via notizBlog, via Sean Percival] [...]
- April 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
[...] nouvelle est tombée aujourd’hui sur le blog de Sean Percival [...]
- David Says:April 24th, 2008 at 12:12 am
iCab has geo-meta support
- April 24th, 2008 at 3:57 am
[...] a detailed blog post by Sean Percival at Maholo, and quite a bit of coverage round the webs. Exciting [...]
- April 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am
[...] there’s been some buzz about Mahalo (something about rolling out microformats) so I decided to take a closer look at this site and I am, for the most part, [...]
- Sally Wu Says:April 24th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
So Cool.. I love seeing companies getting POSH… Just posted about being POSH… check me out… webpoet.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/so-posh
- Charlie Byrne Says:April 25th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Hey, good stuff, glad to see more real-life microformats rolling out.
I recently wrote an microFormats introduction and simple step-by-step tutorial for virtually anyone to get their first “Web 3.0″ microformat page up in 7 minutes or less. Some folks might find it too simplistic, but I thought it was kind of cool do actually do this in a few minutes…
Web 3.0 Overview: earlytorise.com/2008/04/08/etrs-7-minute-guide-to-web-30-the-coming-information-revolution.html
Set up your own Microformat page tutorial: charliebyrne.blogspot.com/2008/04/web-30-semantic-web-and-microformats.html
Thanks, - Charlie
- April 25th, 2008 at 11:15 am
[...] it just me, or are microformats popping up more often these days? Finally … [...]
- April 25th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
[...] Mahalo adds microformats [...]
- April 28th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
[...] it was nice to see that Mahalo.com, a web directory against whom Wired.com bears no grudge, is now using microformats for their data. Your [...]
- May 8th, 2008 at 8:33 am
[...] the people powered search engine, just rolled out microformats for certain search results. Sean Percival told me about the rollout earlier this evening, and I had to admit a shocking amount of ignorance when I asked what he meant [...]
- calculator rate morgage Says:January 25th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
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- March 22nd, 2009 at 6:06 pm
[...] Mahalo adds microformats [...]
The same idea, all these years later
Machine-readable product data isn't a novelty anymore, it's the whole game. Here's where that thread leads today:
- EntitledThe app itself — AI SEO for Shopify, with receipts instead of vibes.
- AI Visibility (Learn hub)Free guides on AEO, AI shopping feeds, and getting product data ready for AI to actually read.
- Entitled: An AI SEO App for Shopify That Shows Its ReceiptsThe 2026 essay walking through why I built it and what it actually does.
- My Shopify appsEntitled, Seam, and everything else I've built for merchants.