The 411 on Sitemaps

As we mentioned in this morning's reboot, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to all support the Sitemaps protocol in their web search tools. If your eyes glazed over as soon as you read "XML," or if you're wondering what all the hubbub is about, here is an excellent explanation of the protocol from Global Nerdy:

A SiteMap is an XML file that contains information about one or more URLs on a site. The information on the URLs is for the benefit of search engines and other applications that crawl or index the site.

The minimum information that a SiteMap must provide is a list of URLs. By providing such a list, you Normally, a search engine would have to explore all the links on your site to build a map of it; a SiteMap listing all the public URLs on your site would ensure that your site got indexed more quickly and that no URL got missed.

See Google's overview, too. (that's an HTTPS link)

Webmasters can also extend the file to give priority to a specific URL or URLs on their sites. So, you can tell search engines which pages are the most important, which pages change more often than others and how often they change. It greatly improves the efficiency and relevance of web searches, and the fact that the three major search companies are all getting behind Sitemaps shows that they're really interested in making the web a better place.

Relish it today. Tomorrow, they'll go back to their poker faces like this never happened.