Ask’s blog today reiterated important news from SES New York that the major engines have agreed on a sitemap autodiscovery standard.
Sites will now be able to specify the location of each sitemap from their robot.txt file creating an open-format autodiscovery platform and eliminating the need to submit sitemaps to each search engine.
The discovery protocol has benefits for search engines as well as site publishers as sitemap standardization brings us one step closer to a comprehensive and accurate search experience.
With the now standard protocols for development and improved distribution through autodiscovery, sitemaps just moved up the list of your SEO priorities leaving you no excuse to get one done.