Google, Microsoft and Yahoo join hands

In an atypical mutual effort, arch rivals Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have agreed to support a single, common protocol to make Web sites more visible to search engines. The three Internet search leaders which compete directly in internet search and other online services have partnered to simplify how webmasters and online publishers submit their sites' content for indexing in the companies' search engines.

The companies intend to support the open-source Sitemap Protocol, based on XML. They will begin using Google Sitemaps in an attempt to standardize and improve the website indexing process. The protocol to be adopted has been created and used by Google for almost about 18 months now.

A site map is a file that webmasters and publishers put on their sites to guide the search engines' automated Web crawlers in properly indexing their Web pages. Based on XML, site maps describe a Web site's file and directory structure. In addition to identifying fresh content for search engines, sitemaps also help save bandwidth for publishers and search engines as they avoid unnecessary crawls to identify new or changed files.

Windows Live Search general manager Ken Moss, in a joint statement said, "the quality of your index is predicated by the quality of your sources and Windows Live Search is happy to be working with Google and Yahoo! on Sitemaps to not only help webmasters, but also help consumers by delivering more relevant search results so they can find what they’re looking for faster."

Put together, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have an 85.3 percent search engine market share as of July 2006. It is also learnt that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will encourage other search engine operators, as well as makers of related software, like content management systems vendors to support the protocol.

The coming together of the three giants to standardize the protocol is a welcome step, a great development for the whole community and addresses a real need of webmasters.