I've recently added Google Sitemaps to many of my websites. Since Yahoo and MSN joined in endorsing the Google sitemap format, this seemed like the best method for broad inclusion. However, many of my websites are internationally based and some countries have search engines with much greater market share than Google or Yahoo. For example, Yandex.ru for Russia, Naver.co.kr for Korea, and Walla.co.il for Israel. Since I usually include the sitemap location in the robots.txt file, I haven't felt the need to include a link to the sitemap on my pages. However, even if I did include a link to the sitemap, it's unclear if these other search engines could interpret the sitemap correctly as there are no traditional links. Does anyone have any idea about making your websites more friendly to non-traditional search engines? Curious to see what solutions others have found to get included in "foreign" search engines. Thanks your looking.
Yes, the standard is accepted for MSN and Moreover, etc. You can submit them to the various search engines. I can't recall the links off the top of my head, but I have them at home. If someone else doesn't list them first, I'll try to do so when I get home.
google sitemap can be used for only google, yahoo and msn. the other search engines will not know about the sitemap
I would publih an html map on the site and submit the site to the search engine. The best would be to check with the russian search engine if they accept sitemaps and what kind. I guess that all search engine will come to this standard
Going right to the source may be the best. See if you can find someone who can read those languages and have them see what the search engines say in their guidelines.
Thanks for the responses. BTW, these are .xml sitemaps. I'll check with the other search engines to see if they have a standard format for sitemaps or if they're even used. Thanks again.