Is the role attribute supported by search engines?

HTML5 introduced 22 new markup tags. W3C still recommends we stick to the old tags, because IE exists. I think adding JavaScript for this purpose is over the top. HTML5 also features the less known role, comparable with the ARIA role of XHTML 2. The great advantage of the markup tags is that search engines like Go开发者_如何学编程ogle know which is which. Do search engines also support these?

Hard to tell, but I would say Google understands them in the same way as it understands HTML5 tags. And even support for HTML5 will take some time, since new sites could take too much vantage from old HTML4 sites.

For example a <div role="main">...</div> would be like the main <article>...</article> of your page.

Please keep in mind that it is important to make your document at least ARIA valid. For example, use more than one role="main" in your site is invalid and could be considered as blackhat SEO.

Worth using role where appropriate. Remember that it improves the accessibility of your site.