Yahoo! & Microsoft team up with Google…
…to create a standard for sitemaps.
Last year we published the Sitemap 0.84 XML protocol as a free and easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about URLs on their web sites so that search engines can more effectively crawl them. We released it under the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license in the hopes that other search engines would adopt the protocol too. And today, we’re excited to announce that Yahoo! and Microsoft are joining us in officially supporting the Sitemap protocol.
As the web becomes more dynamic, Sitemaps will enable better and fresher search results for everyone who uses the web. For site owners, Sitemaps will help improve website visibility in search results. You can read more about this on our Webmaster Central blog.
That was from The Google Blog.
Great thing about this is that little plugin that automatically creates a Google sitemap of your blog or website will now not only be ingested by the Googlebot but MSN Live’s bot & Yahoo!’s slurper too. Less work for the SEM’s more time to chat with Your Web AddiCT(s); on meebo 😉
Ok, so what is a sitemap and why do you need on on your site? If we’ve setup your blog it’s already there. According to wikipedia sitemaps are:
A site map (or sitemap) is a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found.
Site maps do have limitations. Most search engines will only follow a finite number of links from a page, so if a site is very large, additional strategies besides the site map may be required so that search engines and visitors can access all content on the site.
Is you’d like a peak at Your Web AddiCT(s); sitemap click here. It’s in XML so do not be alarmed if you see code.