Quantcast
Subscribe to magazine

Major Search Engines Improve Sitemaps Protocol

A rare collaboration among search giants and rivals has yielded its first result in a protocol designed to simplify how sites' content is submitted for search engine indexing.

Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service

  • 0 Yes
  • 0 No

The rare collaboration between search rivals Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. over site maps has yielded its first result.

On Wednesday, the vendors announced they have enhanced Sitemap, a protocol designed to simplify how webmasters and online publishers submit their sites' content for indexing in search engines.

Along with the improvements, the vendors also announced that IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com will support the protocol, which thus gains backing from another major search engine operator. IBM Corp. also signed up to support the effort.

In November, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft agreed to support Sitemap, an open-source protocol based on XML (Extensible Markup Language.)

A site map is a file that webmasters and publishers put on their sites to help the search engines' automated Web crawlers properly index Web pages. The Sitemap protocol aims to provide a standard format for site maps, which should simplify their creation by Web publishers and their discovery and interpretation by search engines.

On Wednesday, the vendors announced that the Sitemap protocol, now in version 0.90, provides a uniform way of telling search index crawlers where site map files are located on a site.

All Web crawlers recognize the robots.txt instruction, which tells crawlers not to index certain information, so now webmasters can indicate the location of their site map file within robots.txt files. Meanwhile, the protocol's official Web site is now available in 18 languages.

More information about the enhancements can be found in official blog postings from Yahoo and from Google.

The Sitemap protocol was originally developed by Google and is offered under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

  • Recommend this story?
  • 0 Yes
    0 No

"Major Search Engines Improve Sitemaps Protocol" Comments

Print 65% more pages than with refilled inks. Trust Original HP Inks. Hit Print Reliably.

Featured APC Accessories For Your System
10% Off Entire Cart at Online Store

  • APC Back-UPS ES Safeguards your equipment from damaging surges and spikes that travel along your utility & data lines.
  • APC SurgeArrest Performance Highest level of protection for your professional computers, electronics and connected devices, as well as provides surge protection.

People who read this also read:

  • 2007 Microsoft Office Suites Comparison This paper compares and contrasts four suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system: Microsoft Office Standard 2007, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. This paper is intended to help organizations understand the applications and capabilities offered, and to identify the suite that best fits their needs.
  • Windows Vista Migration: The Business Proposition It's not so much a matter of "if" but "when" for most organizations regarding migration to Windows Vista. Laying the groundwork now for this migration can yield higher ROI than waiting until later. This Computerworld Technology Briefing explains it all.

PC World's Marketplace