Looking for cheap gas? Sure, the price has been falling, but drivers are still looking to save. Enter Yahoo, which has rolled out a new shortcut that maps gas stations and gas prices directly within in the search results page. Just use the words "gas prices" or "cheap gas" followed by a ZIP code or city name, and you'll get back a map with prices mapped. I found that using only the word "gas" with a ZIP or city name also worked. The screenshot above shows how it looked for a search on gas prices 92663.How are things at other search engines? When I looked last June, Google was lis [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search Features: Shortcuts | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Shortcuts

The Midwest of the US was rocked by an unusual 5.2 earthquake. Looking at Google Trends, which shows popular recent queries, I can see people immediately hit the search engines with queries like illinois earthquake, chicago earthquake, and midwest earthquake. So how did the search engines do? Especially when search engines are supposed to be providing better direct answers for queries like this? Not particularly well. Google alone came through with news results on a general search. All four did better with specific searches. First, I checked what you'd get just for a search on [earthqua [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Shortcuts

Live Search has just added Instant Answers for snow conditions at ski resorts. Type a query for a resort name (such as "whistler") or for a resort area (such as "CO snow report") and you'll see information such as lift status, amount of new snow, base depth, and conditions. The blog post acknowledges that content boxes like this above the web results can be a balancing act. (Google recently expanded its local Onebox to 10 listings, to mixed reviews.) They'll show a maximum of four resorts. For example, the query "washington snowboarding" brings up the top four open resorts by recent snowf [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Microsoft: Bing | Search Features: Shortcuts

The Google Blog announced they have improved how they return flight status information in search results. Instead of just providing a link to get flight times, you get that information directly in the OneBox area at Google, without requiring a click to see it. Here is a screen capture of the Google results for a search on aa 123 before Google added schedule information to the result: Here are Google's new results: Notice how Google now tells you if your flight is on time or delayed, as well as the estimated departure and arrival times. Danny did a huge compare and contrast of how sea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers | Search Engines: Travel Search Engines | Search Features: Shortcuts | Search Marketing: General

This has been a remarkable year. After years of no real dramatic evolution in search, the third generation finally arrived. Google calls it Universal Search, and I've been tending to say "blended search" as a generic name for the change that's now hit all the major search engines. But in doing the agenda for our upcoming SMX West conference, a better term for what's going on finally clicked: Search 3.0. In this article, I'll cover the why and what of Search 3.0, taking in Search 1.0 and 2.0 along the way and touch on how Search 4.0 -- personal and social refinement -- is on the way. [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Web Search | Channel: SEO | Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers | Google: Universal Search | Microsoft: Bing | Search 3.0 | Search Features: Shortcuts | Yahoo: Shortcuts

Next month, AT&T is killing its call for current time feature. One reason? There are too many other ways to get the correct time -- and search engines are among those resources. Below, a look at how easy search engines make it to get the current time for anywhere in the world. Typically, a search in the format of "time in [city] or [state] or [country]" returns the current time for the area you searched for at the top of the search results, for most major search engines. For example, here's time in paris from Ask.com: Ask has also just enhanced this feature more, which we covered last we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Shortcuts

Ask.com is now displaying a clock showing the local time in relation to local searches. For example, search for san jose, ca, and you'll see the local time there appearing in the right-hand column, like this: Give it a try for your favorite city. [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Ask 3D | Ask: Web Search | Channel: Search Marketing | Search Features: Shortcuts

Today, Just Behave welcomes the second of our guest columnists, Larry Cornett, Vice President of Search Experience at Yahoo.—Gord Hotchkiss Where do you go to get your daily fix of fresh information? If you are like millions of other users out there, you hit sites like Digg, Delicious, Techmeme, or just open your favorite RSS reader. Or, you tap into your Stumbleupon toolbar to see what your fellow Stumblers have found interesting lately. Most people don't automatically think of search as a place for serendipitous exploration. Search is best when you have something specific in mind [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search & Usability | Search Features: Query Refinement | Search Features: Shortcuts | Stats: Search Behavior

The Yahoo Search blog has reported that Yahoo has now integrated their new music lyrics database into the Yahoo search results. If you perform a search on neil young lyrics at Yahoo, you will see a Yahoo Shortcut for "Neil Young Lyrics - Music Results." If you click on the top link it takes you to Yahoo Music Lyrics page for Neil Young. The searches also work for some song titles with appending "lyrics" to the end, but not all (for example, hotel california lyrics comes up with nothing). The Yahoo Shortcuts page itself doesn't yet provide help information about the feature. Ask.com also [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Shortcuts | Yahoo: Music | Yahoo: Shortcuts

The Yahoo Search Blog announced they have improved their movie shortcuts to add more information. The added information includes, movie trailers, user and critic ratings, a brief summary, and movie showtimes. For example, a search on Dreamgirls, 10025 brings up this Yahoo Shortcut. Of course other search engines offer similar results. + Google Dreamgirls, 10025 result + Ask.com Dreamgirls + Live.com Dreamgirls, 10025 Older screenshot shows a bug, but it is now fixed. The bug did not show the local show times based on the zip code... [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Shortcuts | Yahoo: Shortcuts

The Google Blog announced that when you conduct searches at Google.com for local specific information, you may get local reviews and business comparisons. For example a search on pizza 10010 returns three results, all with five stars, from pizza restaurants in NYC. Here is a screen capture: It also works with movies 10010. On the business front, a search on web 10901, brings up a local result for my business (RustyBrick) and two of my competitors, with no reviews. Other search engines return similar results. For example, Ask.com for a search on pizza 10010 brings up 3 local results wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Maps & Local | Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Features: Shortcuts

Yahoo! Shortcuts must be working for searchers and for Yahoo! Starting last week, I noticed Yahoo prompting me a lot more to search for retailer coupons, flights from city to city and movie showtimes - all which trigger a Yahoo Shortcut. While shortcuts have been around for a while, this is the first time I remember Yahoo prompting me over and over use them before I've completed a search. I've gotten used to getting this after a generic search: But these showed up when I went to search.yahoo.com or my.yahoo.com: If you want to learn more about these vertical search results creepi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Shortcuts | Yahoo: Shortcuts