As part of their quests to provide their users with the most accurate answers, search engines such as Google and Yahoo have been trying to gain a better understanding of site and link structures. Google introduced its Webmaster tool, Yahoo introduced and enhanced its Site Explorer and MSN provided Live Webmaster Center.
These tools help webmasters submit their XML sitemaps to search engines and better understand how search engines see their sites and optimize their sites accordingly.
Despite their fierce competition, Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines decided to collaborate together and introduce a unified sitemap protocol last year. This year Ask.com joined the group.
What is news worthy is the addition of a new XML sitemap auto-discovery protocol. Webmasters can now create their xml sitemaps and place it on their root folder. Instead of manually submitting it to the search engines, it is now possible to instruct bots to the sitemap by adding “Sitemap: http://www.site.com/sitemap.xml” code to the robots.txt file.
Even though customization might be necessary, it is possible to write an script or use an XML sitemap generator that runs on the server and creates and updates the sitemap on appropriate intervals. This can be proved useful for dynamic sites that keep changing their content/offers.
Nima Asrar Haghighi, SEO Expert
Also read “How to Generate XML Sitemap for Your Web Site” and “XML Sitemap for Large Sites”
Similar articles at: http://www.semseoexpert.com/search-engine-optimization
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