Major Search Engines Collaborate on Web Index Tool
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You don't often get to see major search engine rivals Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft agreeing to work together on something. But apparently the clamor from webmasters, to say nothing of the practical benefits to the search engines themselves, could not be ignored. Meet Sitemaps.org 0.90, a site that eases the job of submitting web pages for indexing to the search engines.
Google and Yahoo initially announced their collaboration around November 16, with Microsoft joining in shortly thereafter. Up until now, when webmasters wanted to submit their sites to be indexed by the search engines, they had to use one RSS feed for Google, another one for Yahoo, and a third one for Microsoft. Now, with the launch of Sitemaps.org, webmasters and publishers have "a unified way to send their content...let our search engines know about new and existing content," explained Tim Mayer of Yahoo.
At the time they announced the collaboration, Google and Yahoo also issued an open invitation to other search engines willing to join the project. Microsoft accepted the invitation; as of this writing, neither Ask.com nor any other search engine has come on board, but that can be expected to change.
WebProNews boasts a short video on its web site (just over 10 minutes) in which Google's Vanessa Fox and Yahoo's Tim Mayer explained why the search engines are working together on this. They suggested it could benefit sites of all ages and sizes. New sites stand to benefit because sometimes the search engines may have a difficult time discovering them. Owners of larger sites that have been established for awhile will appreciate the fact that Sitemaps.org helps multiple search engines find and index all of their URLs, since spiders sometimes have a difficult time getting everything from a large web site.
Next: What is Sitemaps.org? >>
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