If you've got an XML sitemap for your website, you can alert the search engines to updates by typing a specially formatted URL into your browser. Here are the URLs for the Sitemap ping services for each of the three major search engines.

• Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.example.com/sitemap-file.xml. (where example.com and sitemap-file.xml are replaced by your domain and filename).
• MSN: http://webmaster.live.com/ping.aspx?siteMap= http://www.example.com/sitemap-file.xml.  (where example.com and sitemap-file.xml are replaced by your domain and filename).
• Yahoo! also offers this service, but a more involved registration process is required.  Learn more about Yahoo!’s Update Notification.

For help with XML Sitemap set-up and submittal, follow these links:

• Google Sitemap instructions
• Sitemap overview on searchengineland.com
• The Sitemap Protocol page at sitemaps.org
• The Wikipedia page on Sitemaps
• Sitemap Generators and other Sitemap-related forums services, listed by Google

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posted 12.30.2007

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