The Yahoo-Microsoft search transition is picking up momentum. Yahoo announced a number of things today relevant to the change over. They concern the organic search transition, SearchMonkey and Site Explorer. Yahoo announced that later this week the organic transition will commence for PC and mobile results in North America: This is an important step toward our goal of improving the overall relevance of Yahoo! organic search results and attracting a larger audience to Yahoo! Search, to ultimately put your ads in front of more potential customers. You'll want to make sure that you're pr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing SEO | Top News | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: Site Explorer

Yesterday Yahoo hosted a press event called SearchSpeak that sought to dispel the "misconception," in the words of new Search Products SVP Shashi Seth, that Yahoo was no longer investing in search. As Seth took the stage to begin his presentation the power in the room went out. Not a very auspicious start to the day, it seemed symbolic of Yahoo's new difficulties and challenges in search. Attempting to generate enthusiasm, he pressed on without slides: despite the popular misconception, Yahoo is not out of search, echoing statements made by CEO Carol Bartz and others on past company earning [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: Shortcuts

Yahoo has now gone live with its new search format. There's nothing radical or "game changing." However, there are some nice upgrades and improvements. Most prominently, it features a new left column that allows users to filter results by Search Monkey content providers or refine by related concepts. It also features more prominent placement for Search Pad and an expansion of Search Assist. Yahoo says it has also improved image and video search and says speed and performance are better across the board. Yahoo previewed these new features previously and Danny discussed them at some length in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Microsoft: Bing | Top News | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: User Interface

The Yahoo Search Blog announced the expansion of the SearchMonkey platform to not only include richer search results for categories such as Video, Documents, and Games but now also in the categories of Products, Local Businesses, Event, Discussions, or News. Here are some example search results that show off some of these features: We have covered Yahoo SearchMonkey extensively here, for past articles see the Search Monkey category. Postscript From Danny Sullivan: An important change is that those making use of Yahoo's paid inclusion programs are now guaranteed rich res [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey

During the Yahoo-Microsoft conference call with CEOs Bartz and Ballmer and subsequent discussion with Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi and Yahoo's Hilary Schneider we heard repeatedly that although the two engines would share a single index and Microsoft would incorporate elements of Yahoo Search (e.g., Search Monkey) into Bing, Yahoo would continue to be different and vital in search. Freed from the cost ($425 million reportedly) and ongoing demands of the back end, it would "innovate" around the interface and search user experience. Many people in the industry were skeptical and  shrugged it o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: General | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: User Interface

By now, everyone has read all about the news that Yahoo is replacing its search index with Microsoft's Bing. In a way, it's a great story of complete reversal, as in 2002, Microsoft didn't have its own index and instead used Inktomi. Late that year, Yahoo! acquired Inktomi, which spurred Microsoft to start building its own search index to avoid having a search supplier owned by a major competitor. Now Yahoo is ditching its index (including all of the technology it acquired with Inktomi) to use the very index it motivated Microsoft to build. We've read about what this means for advertisers ( [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Microsoft: Bing | SEO - Search Engine Optimization | Top News | Yahoo: APIs | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: Site Explorer

When I heard about the call with Yahoo yesterday, which was to feature "a significant announcement," I thought: "Bing, here it is." When it turned out the call was about a formal announcement of the new Yahoo homepage I was disappointed; it seemed anti-climactic. The existence of a forthcoming Yahoo homepage redesign has been known for months and screenshots of earlier versions have been seen previously in several places online. However, the new Yahoo homepage, which launches around 4:30 Eastern today, turns out to be both interesting and practical. The embargo was broken yesterday so immed [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Top News | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey | Yahoo: User Interface

Yahoo started the push to structure the web when it launched SearchMonkey. With SearchMonkey, a web developer could add semantic markup to a page and then build an enhanced listing for Yahoo search results.  Not long after, they made things even easier by using this data to enhance listings even without a SearchMonkey application. Google jumped on the structured data bandwagon as well, picking up things like reviews information to provide additional information in search results. Microsoft Bing's new document for webmasters also encourages the use of structured data, although it's not clear w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Yahoo! recently announced their role in creating and supporting Common Tag, a new semantic tagging format. Yahoo! says that Common Tag makes "web content more discoverable" and enables the community to "create more useful applications for aggregating, searching, and browsing the web." Their blog post mentions that they want to accelerate the structuring of the web, which aligns with their SearchMonkey launch last year, which they said was, in part, an attempt to encourage the use of structured data on the web. This brings to mind a few questions. Why did the web need a new semantic stand [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Search Features: Tagging | Top News | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Yahoo held a search event today in San Francisco at which the company connected the dots among a number of search initiatives that it has rolled out over the past couple of years: Search Assist, BOSS, Search Monkey, Search Pad and oneSearch. There was no announcement but a provocative reframing of all these efforts. The big idea (now familiar) is moving beyond "10 blue links" (popularized as a criticism of search by former Ask CEO Jim Lanzone) to a "web of objects." The "web of objects" presented by Yahoo is a better representation of the "real world" in search results. In other words: more [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Top News | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Today, I met with Dr. Ron Milo who works in the field of plant sciences at Weizmann Institute in Israel, who showed me a specialty search engine project he built from the ground up named BioNumbers. In short, BioNumbers is a collection of common biological numbers that is useful to one's research. For example, the average diameter of a protein is 5 nanometers. This week, I am on a special trip known as the Blogger Delegation to Israel. We are being taken around by the Israeli Consulate to learn about Israel and the people who live here. Clearly, my focus is on search - so when I went to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Custom Search Engine | Search Engines: Academic Search Engines | Search Engines: Answer Search Engines | Yahoo: Search Builder | Yahoo: Search Monkey

It just got a lot easier for non-developers to take advantage of the enhanced listings that Yahoo SearchMonkey offers. Yahoo has announced that flash video, games, and documents can now be embedded into Yahoo search results with only a few lines of code -- you don't have to create a special SearchMonkey app. Video is likely to be a popular use of this new feature, and is the first content type to be supported; games and documents will be supported "in the next month or so," Yahoo says. SearchMonkey currently supports Flash video players including YouTube, Hulu, Metacafe, and Yahoo Video. An [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Thanks to Yahoo's SearchMonkey, you'll be able to poke your friends right from a page of Yahoo search results. Yahoo has announced that Facebook enhanced results are now turned on by default across Yahoo search results. This means that any Facebook user who has allowed his/her profile to be publicly viewable and searchable can now be seen in the Yahoo search results with enhanced Facebook data. Here's an enhanced result for Danny Sullivan: The main link points to Danny's Facebook profile, and there are additional links to add Danny as a friend, view his friends, send him a message, a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey

The word "content" wasn't historically used to broadly describe writing or imagery or video until the internet. The term "content" also implies a kind of generic equivalence -- lots of things that are more or less of equal value or can be lumped into the same bucket. That notion certainly applies to what's happened to news online. We all know the well-documented survey data that show the internet has become the preferred news source (or in some surveys second to TV) across age groups in the US. We all also know the terrible financial condition of major metro daily newspapers in the US. The [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: Analysis | Google: Critics | Google: News | Search Engines: News Search Engines | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Today, Yahoo! has announced several new features to their Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) platform as well as usage fees. When BOSS launched in July 2008, the stated goal was to spur innovation and disrupt the search market. Will the additional of usage fees hinder that goal and become a barrier to entry for the cost-limited startups Yahoo! was originally trying to help? Yahoo says no, that they "believe that introducing the proposed pricing structure will improve the ecosystem by optimizing capacity for our serious developers." Fee structure The BOSS charges kick in only once queri [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Top News | Yahoo: APIs | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Yahoo has just announced that the Wikipedia SearchMonkey App is now turned on by default for all Yahoo search users. Wikipedia becomes the sixth app that all Yahoo searchers will see, joining LinkedIn, Yelp, Yahoo Local, Citysearch, and Zagat. SearchMonkey adds enhanced content to the search results page. The Wikipedia app includes a snippet of text from the Wikipedia article summary, deep links to the first four sections of the article, and a photo if the article has one. Here's a screenshot that Yahoo provided showing the Wikipedia app in action: With the new app, Yahoo now joins G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Engines: Wikipedia | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Top News | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Yahoo has announced the addition of more local business content to their web search results thanks to Yahoo's SearchMonkey program. Yahoo has turned on the SearchMonkey applications for both Citysearch and Zagat; users don't have to opt-in to see enhanced content from those sites -- it's now turned on by default for all users. In fact, four of the five on-by-default SearchMonkey applications have local content. In addition to Citysearch and Zagat, Yahoo Local and Yelp are also showing enhanced listings for all users. (The fifth on-by-default app is LinkedIn.) This is big news for local b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | SEO: Local | Top News | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Yahoo has announced that they have changed the Search Monkey enhanced results template to a new layout. Here is a before and after shot: Why the change? Yahoo said that based on "A/B testing, eye tracking and usability research," they found that the new format is easier to use and understand. So hopefully, the only side affect for webmasters will be more clicks from Yahoo Search. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Earlier this year, when I wrote about Yahoo! SearchMonkey, which enables developers to build search result enhancements based on semantic web data, I was skeptical that it would fulfill Yahoo!'s stated aims of encouraging wider use of semantic web standards. While I agreed with Yahoo! that site owners need a reason to adopt these standards, I didn't know that SearchMonkey would be that reason. The enhanced listings weren't turned on for searchers by default and searchers are notorious for never customizing their search experience. If searchers never see the listings, where's the motivation? [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Yahoo: Search Monkey

Yahoo has announced the winners of the SearchMonkey Developer Challenge. The judges, including our very own Danny Sullivan, reviewed "hundreds of submissions" and selected five winners. The winners include: StumbleUpon for building the SU Infobar that shows you "website reviews and ratings" before you click on the search results in Yahoo. This tool received the win for best "Innovative Structured Data" use.The "Best Infobar" goes to BooRah for an app that "deep links and reviews to local restaurants."The "Best Enhanced Result" winner is Greg Schechter for building XBox.com Games Enhancement [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Yahoo: Search Monkey