Spun

Google Sitemaps looks really cool. From what I can see of it, you submit an XML document which defines a map of your site - page locations, their update frequency and priority - and the Googlebot indexes as you specify (though Google doesn’t make any promises, presumably to discourage spammers and rogue SEOers). Looks like they’re going to provide site stats based on sitemaps as well.

I told the MSN Search team last month that tools for web publishers - like stats, popularity rankings of pages, configurable internal site search - would be the killer app that would get site publishers to adopt and spread a particular brand’s search box. Looks like the big G is headed in that direction.

And! They’re accepting pings when a site changes!!