Question

The new schema.org by Google, Yahoo and MS recommends usage of the <link> attribute to display the status of products in an online shop:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer">
  <span itemprop="name">Blend-O-Matic</span>
  <span itemprop="price">$19.95</span>
  <link itemprop="availability" href="http://schema.org/InStock"/>Available today!
</div>

Yet, according to w3schools.org <link> is only allowed in head sections:

Note: This element goes only in the head section, but it can appear any number of times.

I am not used to W3C style, so I was not able to understand the exact definition by W3C. Can anybody help me: Is it really allowed to use <link> within the body (in HTML5, as schema.org uses HTML5 tags) or do Google, Yahoo and MS break the standard?

Answer 1

The WHATWG HTML specification mentions, that the LINK-element can either have a rel-attribute:

<link rel="…" />

or an itemprop-attribute

<link itemprop="…" />

but not both.

The rel-version is restricted to the HEAD-element, whereas the itemprop-version may appear in both, the HEAD and BODY-elements.

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/semantics.html#the-link-element

What is this WHATWG specification:

whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/introduction.html#is-this-html5?