title: Where to define schema.org itemtype for Article type: html, body, or div tag?
body: <p>I have article pages where the only content on the page is the article. When marking up pages with schema.org microdata, is it best to define the itemscope and itemtype at the very top in the <code>&lt;html&gt;</code> tag? Or in the <code>&lt;body&gt;</code> tag? Or a <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> in the body? Or does it not matter?</p>
  
  <p>Example of defining in <code>&lt;html&gt;</code> tag:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html lang="en" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article"&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
      &lt;div&gt;
      &lt;span itemprop="name"&gt;How to Tie a Reef Knot&lt;/span&gt;
      ...
      &lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Versus a <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> in the body:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;body&gt;
      &lt;div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article"&gt;
          &lt;span itemprop="name"&gt;How to Tie a Reef Knot&lt;/span&gt;
          ...
     &lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
  &lt;/html&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is one better than the other in terms of SEO? It seems like it would be best to define it as close to the top of the page as possible (ie, <code>&lt;html&gt;</code> tag) so the search engine spiders pick it up immediately.</p>