Barcode in Schema standard
Introduction to Barcodes and the EAN-13 Standard
Barcodes are a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form.
Initially, barcodes systematically represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and today, they are key in the automation of checkout systems and inventory control.
One of the most globally recognized barcode standards is the EAN-13.
Ricard Menor, SEO consultant and former EDI and ICT Ops Manager
The EAN-13 barcode is a 13-digit barcoding standard which is a superset of the original 12-digit Universal Product Code (UPC) system developed in the United States.
The EAN-13 barcode is used worldwide for marking products often sold at retail point of sale. The first digits of an EAN-13 barcode identify the country in which the manufacturer’s identification code was assigned. This prefix does not necessarily indicate the country of origin of the product, but rather where the barcode was assigned.
Country-Code Prefixes in the EAN-13 System
Each country or region has a specific set of EAN-13 prefix codes assigned. In the European Union (EU), each member country has one or more codes that identify products registered there.
Here are a few examples of EU member states and their corresponding EAN prefix codes:
- Germany: 400-440
- France: 300-379
- Italy: 800-839
- Spain: 840-849
These codes are crucial for businesses as they help automate the tracking, stock management, and sales processes in international trade.
Examples of EAN Barcode Applications
- Retail Sector: EAN-13 barcodes are predominantly used in the retail sector for managing product inventory and speeding up the checkout process. Scanning barcodes at points of sale helps in accurately calculating prices and updating stock levels.
- Healthcare: In healthcare, EAN-13 barcodes are used on medications and medical equipment for tracking, safety management, and ensuring that the right products are delivered to the right patients.
- Logistics: EAN-13 barcodes assist in the logistics sector by simplifying the tracking of items through various stages of supply chains. Scanning barcodes on packages helps monitor the progress of shipments and manage delivery schedules efficiently.
Linked Data and Schema.org in Industrial Companies
Linked Data refers to a set of best practices for connecting structured data on the web in such a way that it is interlinked and becomes more useful through semantic queries.
It extends the Web to use not just documents, but also data.
Schema.org is an initiative launched in 2011 by major search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo! to create and support a common set of schemas for structured data markup on web pages. These schemas allow webmasters to embed structured data on their web pages for search engines to better understand the content.
For industrial companies, utilizing Schema.org can significantly enhance their online promotion strategy. By marking up their websites with Schema.org vocabulary, companies help search engines understand the specifics of their products and services, such as the types of products manufactured, the industries served, and the business location (the latter is a basic in Local SEO).
This clarity not only aids in better indexing of the website but also improves the visibility in search results, thereby attracting potential business leads and partnerships.
Entity SEO, a technique that leverages such structured data, helps emphasize the uniqueness and authority of a company’s digital presence, fostering trust and increasing engagement with the target audience.
Barcode specified in Schema
The ImageObject is too broad and currently has the usefulness of declaring a MIME graphic content as “image”, without going to class or give clues to their contribution within a document or web page.
This has changed since the inclusion of Barcode as subelement ImageObject, which inherits the following properties:
- caption: identifies the object. A very reasonable use of this property would be the numerical value of the bar code.
- exifData: EXIF data within the image container are identified explicitly.
- representativeOfPage: a Boolean (Yes/No) property that indicates whether the object, thus the barcode, is representative of the page that displays it. Our view is that this property being positive seems quite unlikely, we will not be using the positive value since neither advise to display a page where the barcode was the main object; probably more usual to give this distinction to the image of the product concerned.
- thumbnail: This property is itself a ImageObject that identifies a thumbnail version of the image (barcode) to larger or resolution.
In the context of web projects for industrial business it is worth paying special attention to such developments given the importance of web/ERP interoperability and extended capability provided by the use of Linked-Data technologies for the reuse of information.