Big 3 Search Engines Team Up On Sitemaps

[Webnauts]

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced they'll support the Sitemaps format (which originated as Google Sitemaps) together. More...

Don't miss this video too!

[incrediblehelp]

This is great news!

[incrediblehelp]

This is from joint website, http://www.sitemaps.org/:

http://www.sitemaps.org/faq.html#faq_after_submission

What do I do after I create my Sitemap?

Once you have created the Sitemap file and placed it on your webserver, you submit it to search engines that support the Sitemaps protocol. The search engines can then retrieve your Sitemap and make the URLs available to their crawlers. Refer to each search engine's documentation for more information about submitting to them. You can also submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request (replace <searchengine_URL> with the URL provided by the search engine):
Issue your request to the following URL:

<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

For example, if your Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com/sitemap.gz, your URL will become:

<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=http://www.example.com/sitemap.gz

URL encode everything after the /ping?sitemap=:

<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yoursite.com%2Fsitem ap.gz

You can issue the HTTP request using wget, curl, or another mechanism of your choosing. A successful request will return an HTTP 200 response code; if you receive a different response, you should resubmit your request. The HTTP 200 response code only indicates that the search engine has received your Sitemap, not that the Sitemap itself or the URLs contained in it were valid. An easy way to do this is to set up an automated job to generate and submit Sitemaps on a regular basis.

Note: If you are providing a Sitemap index file, you only need to issue one HTTP request that includes the location of the Sitemap index file; you do not need to issue individual requests for each Sitemap listed in the index.

I tried submitting a sitemap tonight at Yahoo and Google, but it doesnt seem to be working yet.

[Webnauts]

The <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> does not exist. Or did I miss something?

[incrediblehelp]

Still not working for me.

[Webnauts]

Thanks Jaan. Good that I have not implemented it yet. :)

[incrediblehelp]

Anyone having luck with this yet?

Any find any "one" click programs that create the properly formatted sitemap for sitemaps.org?

[Webnauts]

Jaan I had a discussion with my admin, and he said it does not need to validate, as far SE are happy with their site map.

It could only validate XML if the namespace existed, but it does not.

I followed their wish, submitted to Google, and the result was ok.

We can all go for it. :)

AMEN.

[mantawebsolutions]

Webnauts, what are you saying exactly in terms of validating ? Are you talking about the current protocol standard set in the <urlset> tag ?

Sitemaps.org shows it as follow :
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

while xml-sitemaps.com shows it as :
<urlset xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84
http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84/sitemap.xsd">

can we use either or do we switch to the first as shown by sitemaps.org ?

[Webnauts]

You can use for Google both options. I tried the first option and it was accepted.

If you use the second option, that will be only valid for google.

So if you want a global sitemap for all 3 major SE, the you should take the first option.

Don't care about its validation.

[mantawebsolutions]

thanks webnauts

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mantawebsolutions

thanks webnauts

I hope you are aware that you are always welcome. :)

[mantawebsolutions]

I know, thanks for that too :)

[jltidwell]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Anyone having luck with this yet?

Any find any "one" click programs that create the properly formatted sitemap for sitemaps.org?

The only one I've been able to find is a WordPress plugin. Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress. I've implemented it on both my WP (v 2.05) powered sites and it works very well.

If I find anything for non-WP sites, I'll come back and post it.

Jennifer

[jltidwell]

Google Sitemap Generator - Python script that has to be installed on your server.

Here's a list I got from a Google search.

Hope that helps.

Jennifer

[crush123]

i have already submitted sitemaps to gogle and yahoo.
but dont find where to submit such sitemaps to MSN.

i have placed links as text files and submitted as sitemap.
google and yahoo reported that they have processed the site map and the status is ok. but they have not revisited the pages in the sitemap.

will search engines visit the pages after submitting sitemap?
thanks

[Webnauts]

MSN did not announced how to submit a site map yet, however here are the places to watch:
http://search.msn.com.my/docs/siteowner.aspx?FORM=WMSM2 And site owner help:
http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/arc...-sitemaps.aspx

[WebGeek182]

If you need a good sitemap generator...download the free one from: http://enarion.net/google/phpsitemapng/

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by WebGeek182

If you need a good sitemap generator...download the free one from: http://enarion.net/google/phpsitemapng/

Great Script! Her also shows a warning when pages are larger than 100000 bytes.

Thanks buddy. I will pass it over to my chief programmer, to check if it is secure to install it on our server.

[Conficio]

Hi there,
didn't the big three also announce back then a "ping" feature to update content on the site (or the sitemap)?

I'm still puzzled what the URLs are for ping feature. Has any body figured that out?

K<o>

[WebGeek182]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Great Script! Her also shows a warning when pages are larger than 100000 bytes.

Thanks buddy. I will pass it over to my chief programmer, to check if it is secure to install it on our server.

You are very welcome! Glad to help. I really like that script. Been using it for a while and it's quite handy. I think if you simply password protect your directory you won't have any security issues.

[topboy]

Heres a great Google and Yahoo sitemap generator, its a must have for web developers http://gsitecrawler.com/en/download/

[incrediblehelp]

Great new Sitemaps Autodiscovery feature from the SE's:

Today, Ask.com, Google, Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo! together are announcing support of “autodiscovery” of Sitemaps. The new open-format autodiscovery allows webmasters to specify the location of their Sitemaps within their robots.txt file, eliminating the need to submit sitemaps to each search engine separately.

http://blog.ask.com/2007/04/sitemaps_autodi.html

[incrediblehelp]

More from Google on the new Sitemap updates:

What's new with Sitemaps.org?

[idansh]

Teaming up, wow 3 of the largest search engines companies in the world, I wonder why, but we except to have an amazing website with new extras and well maintened website for the years to come, I welcome this teamed up!

[Coleus]

I used this to create my site map. It is easy and fast
Google Sitemaps Generator, Editor and Keyword Analyzer Free Online

[coolguy27]

Nice.. So it mean SEs are interlinking with each other following the biggest and number SE which is Google....

Thanks for the post... Informative...

[braver55b]

That's so good to know as you don't have to wonder if when you create a sitemap if its going to be of any use to the three major engines.

[sky.bobi]

I feel very happy to know that my favorite search engines are become major search engines.

[cyberkid]

Awesome, only not one of them reads the site map the same way....

[Cratima]

This will be very bad for web sites made entirely in flash.
The sitemaps for flash sites are in fact only one link/url.
Our Cratima web site is made in flash, and is already not very
Seo friendly/able, I hope this decision will not effect in a more
badly way the Flash sites.

[simonbuxton132]

We recently rewrote our site from Flash based to .Net because of Search Engine Placement, our initial compromise was to have indexable pages that had flash content, followed by white text on a white background. This was not good as the user could select all and the site would look horrible.

I guess it is OK to rewrite in .Net / Java or php, but they aren't intuitive tools that designers would like to use. Maybe the only solution is a mixture of flash and traditional (or dynamic HTML) pages.

I did think that Flash may die out, but thenMicrosoft release Silverlight.

[comp1]

Hi friend

Tell me the name of best search engine ..........

[tamecrow]

Originally Posted by comp1

Hi friend

Tell me the name of best search engine ..........

[pankaj.sharma]

Thanx for this information................

[hawash]

which is the best sitemap genterator

www.xml-sitemaps.com/
gsitecrawler.com

http://www.addme.com/ror-sitemap-generator.htm
www.akamarketing.com/html-sitemap-maker/

[terryson01]

Sitemap contain page elements of the particular site.
A site map is a visual or textually organized model of a Web site's content that allows the users to navigate through the site to find the information they are looking for.
A site map is a kind of interactive table of contents, in which each listed item links directly to its counterpart sections of the Web site. Site maps perform the same service that the layout maps in large shopping malls perform.

Benefits
Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found. This is especially important if a site uses Macromedia Flash or JavaScript menus that do not include HTML links.

Most search engines will only follow a finite number of links from a page, so if a site is very large, the site map may be required so that search engines and visitors can access all content on the site.

Types
There are at least three major types of sitemaps:

• Indexed,
• Full categorical, and
• Restricted categorical.
  An indexed site map appears as an alphabetical listing or directory. A full categorical map displays all links classified into categories; while a restricted categorical sitemap displays all links listed in a chosen category at a time.
  
  The most widely used format is the full categorical sitemap and is the most preferred by users since it is easier to search for topics within the site and it allows easier comparison between and among categories.
  
  
  Sources of compilation :
  1)Site map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  2)http://searchwebservices.techtarget....541375,00.html
  3)http://www.sitebuildershosting.com/C..._A_Sitemap.php

What is a Sitemap file and why should I have one?

You can use a sitemap file to tell us about all the pages on your site, and optionally, to provide information about those pages, such as which are most important and how often they change. Sitemaps are particularly helpful if your site has dynamic content, pages that aren't easily discovered by following links, or if your site is new and has few links to it.
Sitemaps helps speed up the discovery of your pages, which is an important first step in crawling and indexing your pages, but there are many other factors that influence the crawling/indexing processes. Sitemaps lets you tell us information about your pages (which ones you think are most important, how often the pages change), so you can have a voice in these subsequent steps. Other factors include:

• How many sites link to you
• Whether your content is unique and relevant
• Our ability to crawl the pages successfully
• Everything outlined in our webmaster guidelines.

A sitemap provides an additional view into your site (just as your home page and HTML site map do), but sitemaps do not replace our normal methods of crawling the web. Google still searches and indexes your sites in the normal way, whether or not you use this program, and sites are never penalized for using this service. We can't make any predictions or guarantees about when or if your URLs will be crawled or added to our index but over time, as we refine our processes and better understand webmasters' needs, we expect both coverage and time-to-index to improve.
Once you have created your Sitemap, you can add it to your Google Sitemaps account and update it as your site changes.

[torpengkute]

I already submitted w/ Google and Yahoo but on MSN not yet...


because I really don't know where to find it.

[ValuedAffiliates]

I think we'll see more of these standards across the web. It makes it alot easier for us webmasters. I can't wait until OpenID goes mainstream

[breddg]

submit you MSN sitemap to MSN webmaster tool : http://webmaster.live.com/ gr8

[markz07]

Thanks for the info. That's good news.!

[torpengkute]

Originally Posted by breddg

submit you MSN sitemap to MSN webmaster tool : http://webmaster.live.com/ gr8

Thank you Man....I really Appreciate what have you give...

[platnumcn]

Thanks buddy. I will pass it over to my chief programmer, to check if it is secure to install it on our server.

[onlydo]

i think it's wonderfull this will help us

[full house]

what are those big search engines? is it Google, yahoo and msn?

[khurramali]

A step in the right direction.

[Shades]

Thanks for the sitemap creators, i've been having trouble trying to get mine onto google. Is it a possibility I'm not putting on my site corretly as well?

[Azher Memon]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced they'll support the Sitemaps format (which originated as Google Sitemaps) together. More...

Don't miss this video too!

Superb !!! I found many thing from video such nice information.

[ketty1984]

I have submit my sitemap to google ,but just index 85 pages , we have 1200 pages ,why ?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ketty1984

I have submit my sitemap to google ,but just index 85 pages , we have 1200 pages ,why ?

If you are talking about the site of your profile, your sitemap does not validate. Sure there can are other reasons for your problem, but that is what you should look at first.