Microsoft Now Using Autodiscovery Sitemaps for Crawl Assistance

Jul 25, 2007 - 7:54 am 3 by
Filed Under Bing Search

The official Microsoft Live Search representative at WebmasterWorld said that Microsoft will finally be supporting Sitemaps (for real this time) now. Microsoft will currently support autodiscovery of your sitemap file if it is included within your robots.txt file.

I have been giving Microsoft a hard time about not demonstrating how they will be using the Sitemaps protocol to help Webmasters.

Google, Yahoo and Ask.com all allow you to ping them with the Sitemaps file. Google and Yahoo have Webmaster consoles giving you a way to submit your Sitemap for upload. However, Microsoft, to this day, has nothing, but their word that they will or are supporting it.

Yesterday, Microsoft said that they have "started considering sitemaps in robots.txt and will extend this to most sites within the next few months." Meaning, they are experimenting locating Sitemaps files if they are included in your robots.txt file. But finally, they have admitted that they do not and have not offered "the ability to publish sitemaps via ping or webmaster tools." In addition, they said, they "do not necessarily take into account sitemaps listed in robots.txt files right at this moment."

When will we see Microsoft supporting the Sitemaps protocol they so happily said they would?

As of yesterday, Microsoft will use "autodiscovery for sitemaps through your robots.txt."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Prevents Indexing of Google Custom Search Blog