1 Introduction

  • Article

The Site Data Web Service Protocol consists of a set of server extensions used to augment a basic Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server so that it supports full and incremental indexing. Indexing, in this context, is defined as the process of exploring Web site content and building an index to be used for search, systematic cataloging, content auditing, or similar purposes. This protocol is intended to be used by an indexing service application, not by a user directly through a Web browser.

This protocol provides such an indexing service with a set of operations for systematic, full traversal and incremental change tracking of site content. This protocol assumes that:

  • The site content conforms to a well-defined hierarchical structure (specified in this document) where sites consist of lists, lists consist of items, and items have standard properties.

  • The protocol server keeps track of all changes to Web site content. The indexing service can periodically query for all changes that have occurred since the index was last updated, ensuring that the indexing service need not start anew every time.

Sections 1.5, 1.8, 1.9, 2, and 3 of this specification are normative. All other sections and examples in this specification are informative.