Shashi Seth, SVP of Search & Marketplaces at Yahoo believes that mobile apps are like websites in the early days of the internet and will only continue to multiply just as websites have done -- seemingly exponentially. Regardless of whether the analogy is 100 percent accurate everyone agrees that app discovery has become a big problem. Among other things, it has given rise to an Amazon app store and several independent app-discovery sites like Chomp. Mobile (and increasingly desktop) apps are are an important new content category that Seth believes must be addressed by search. According [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Top News | Yahoo Search Direct | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Search

Today, "in the spirit of sitemaps.org", Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have announced the joint alliance of schema.org. This alliance provides a common foundation of support for a set of microdata types -- some that previously existed and some that have been created as part of this initiative. Microdata is a type of structured mark up that can be used to provide semantic meaning to content on web pages. The microdata types currently supported are documented at schema.og. You can also take a look at the announcements from each search engine on their blogs: Google: Introducing schema.org: S [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: Rich Snippets | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Schema.org | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Top News | Yahoo: Search

"Who is Osama Bin Laden?" Does anyone really need to ask? Apparently so, according to Yahoo -- teenagers. Two thirds of those searching for an answer to that question were teenagers, the company says, along with some other related search statistics. Teens & Osama Bin Laden's Death Yahoo's released a mishmash of stats about Osama bin Laden-related searches, with the suggestion that younger people are more interested in the topic. From Yahoo's press release: News of Osama bin Laden’s death seemed to have struck a chord with younger folks who grew up during the war on terrorism. I didn [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: General | Stats: Search Behavior | Top News | Yahoo: Search

As the privacy screws tighten in the US and Europe, Yahoo is doing something surprising: extending the time it holds on to personal search records. In 2008 Yahoo decided to retain search records for only three months. Yahoo thus became the most "progressive" of the major search sites with its compressed data-retention policy. Now Yahoo is reversing itself. The Europeans had been demanding search/IP data retention of less than six months. And last January Microsoft agreed to comply with that standard. Google, however, refused to retain search records for less than 18 months. The company c [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo reported Q1 revenues of $1,064 million, which represented a 6 percent decline vs. a year ago. The company essentially blamed the search deal with Microsoft for the decline: [The decline was] primarily due to the required change in revenue presentation related to the Search Agreement and the associated revenue share with Microsoft. For transitioned markets (U.S. and Canada), Yahoo! now reports revenue associated with the Search Agreement on a net (after TAC) basis rather than a gross basis. Excluding the impact of these two items and the impact of the divestitures of Zimbra and HotJobs, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

Yahoo has just launched version 2 of BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service). When they announced this version in February, I wrote about the history of BOSS and detailed the changes. The big changes are: The web and image search results are now sourced from Microsoft's search index Yahoo branding attribution is now required (the first version allowed white labeling) Developers are charged based on query volume (the first version was free) the key terms/query suggestions feature has been discontinued Upgrade Process Yahoo says that it's taken 7-10 days for developers they've worked [...]

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

Does the web browser you use say anything about your preferred search engine? It might, according to some data just published by Chitika. After measuring activity across the 80,000 or so sites in its ad network, Chitika reports that Bing usage is tied to which version of Internet Explorer a person uses. Specifically, Bing usage increases as users upgrade to newer versions of Internet Explorer. As you can see, Bing usage jumps from 16.9% among IE8 users to 22.9% among IE9 users -- that's a 35% gain. Is this just a case of IE9 making Bing the user's default search engine? No, not r [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Browsers | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Internet Explorer | Stats: Popularity | Yahoo: Browsers | Yahoo: Search

And you thought Google favored its own properties? Check this out: In Yahoo's new Search Direct feature, 21 of the 26 one-letter alphabet queries show a Yahoo property as the first "answer." If you type the letter "A," for example, Yahoo Answers is the featured result; type "B," and Yahoo Bookmarks is the first answer, and so on through most of the alphabet. That continues until you get to the letter "I," where iTunes becomes the featured answer. In fact, the five letters that don't show a Yahoo property first are: I - iTunes J - Jennifer Lopez Q - QVC X - Xb [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Magazine | Top News | Weekender | Yahoo Search Direct | Yahoo: Search

I had about 20 minutes with Yahoo's Shashi Seth after the press conference to discuss a range of things related to the Search Direct announcement. First, he confirmed that Search Direct entirely replaces Yahoo's Search Assist. Indeed one way to look at it is as Search Assist Plus. The Answer Is Out There Seth said to me that for about 50 percent of the top queries on the web there is a "definite answer" and that Yahoo will strive to provide that within Search Direct. In other contexts it will provide a range of choices to users. Seth predicted  that "in a couple of years we may walk comp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads | Yahoo: Shortcuts

Yahoo rolled out Yahoo Search Direct today, its rival to Google Instant. Yahoo says that its service is focused on providing actual answers, while Google's is focused on bringing back links. True? Let's have a face-off. Test 1: Who's #Winning For Charlie Sheen? Yahoo says one of the 15 areas that it's especially focused on right now with Yahoo Search Direct  is that of celebrities. Well, celebrity Charlie Sheen is still making plenty of news. What happens if I try searching for him at both places? Typing in "charlie..." on Yahoo gives me: There are links to Sheen's Wikipedia page, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Yahoo Search Direct | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo CTO Blake Irving introduced Yahoo's challenge to Google Instant, "Search Direct," at a press event today at the offices of Yahoo's PR agency. (See Danny's head to head comparison of Yahoo and Google Instant.) Before diving into the news, Irving first reviewed Yahoo's strategy (presented as a periodic table). Yahoo Instant Search Take Two Irving then moved on to the main event: Search Direct. The simple way to describe it is as Yahoo's version of Google's Instant Search but with richer content. It's intended to apply to both the PC and mobile experiences (including tablets). Irvi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Instant | Top News | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

AllTheWeb one of the search engines Yahoo acquired in 2003 to help build Yahoo Search, will be sunsetting on April 4, 2011. After April 4th, when you try to access AllTheWeb, you will be redirected to Yahoo Search's home page. A message posted on the AllTheWeb.com reads: Yahoo! will be closing AlltheWeb on April 4, 2011, as we focus on other features to improve your search experience. Starting on April 4, 2011, http://www.alltheweb.com will redirect to Yahoo! Search at http://search.yahoo.com. Thanks for your understanding. This is not unexpected. A Yahoo documented was leaked containin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo has just announced that they're about to launch a new version of BOSS with a fee structure based on query volume. (The initial version launched in 2008 was free, and a fee structure for high volume use was first talked about in 2009). Yahoo BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) provides an API that enables developers to use Yahoo search results in their applications. What else is new? The web search results will be coming from Microsoft's Bing index rather than Yahoo's. A earlier post noted, "BOSS will continue to be a RESTful API for web, image, and news search. Core web an [...]

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

Google: Go to the head of the class. Wikipedia: You stay after school for extra tutoring. That seems to be one of the conclusions you can draw from a fun blog post today by Wolfram|Alpha founder Stephen Wolfram. Writing about the Jeopardy battle between past champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter and IBM's Watson computer (the computer won a dry run earlier this month), Wolfram decided to see how several search engines would fare when asked to answer Jeopardy clues. The results? Google scored highest in both having the answer show up anywhere on the first page of search results and ha [...]

Related Topics: Blekko | Channel: Consumer | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Search Engines: Answer Search Engines | Search Engines: Yandex | Wolfram Alpha | Yahoo: Search

Readers outside the US may want to know that the Yahoo-Bing search transition is now complete in three more countries. According to this Yahoo blog post, Bing is now powering the Yahoo back-end for organic search in: Australia Brazil Mexico Bing started powering Yahoo's organic results in the US and Canada last August. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Outside US | Microsoft: Partnerships | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo has rolled out a restaurant Quick App, part of a larger program of making more structured content and transactional capabilities available in SERPs. Examples of Quick Apps are reflected in the screenshot below: Netflix, OpenTable and Sketch-a-search. These "apps" allow users to do a number of things from within the search results. For example, Sketch-a-search allows users to launch a window and search for restaurants by drawing a custom geographic area on a map. The Restaurant Comparison Quick App builds a grid display of similar restaurants (or geographically relevant [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Japan's Fair Trade Commission has given its approval to a partnership that allows Yahoo Japan to use Google search results. According to Reuters, Japan's FTC has promised to monitor the alliance for possible violations of the country's anti-monopoly laws. Yahoo Japan, which is controlled by Softbank with Yahoo Inc. as a minor owner, announced in July that it would use Google's search results instead of Yahoo's (and then Bing's when that partnership was implemented over the summer). Days later, Microsoft announced its intention to challenge the Google-Yahoo Japan deal. As a minority owner, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Outside US | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft: Outside US | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search

Sound the vuvuzelas! In what surely will take top honors for the list(s) to end all lists this year, Yahoo! has unveiled its annual Year in Review for 2010, featuring at least 25 categories of Top 10 most searched for topics. This year's special searches cover everything from the usual celebrities and gossip headlines, to sports standouts to natural disasters (at times, those topics overlap) and survival stories to searches for recipes to unemployment and coupons, users seemed to seek out any glimmer of hope to help get through the depression of the great recession. With so much ground [...]

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

Yahoo announced a new set of quick search apps today. The one I like the best is this Sketch-A-Search App, but they also released OpenTable Quick App today and will be releasing a Restaurant Comparison Quick App soon. Let me take you through the Sketch-A-Search App which is live today on Yahoo Search. The Sketch-A-Search App lets you draw an outline on a map and confine local results to be within that outline. Ask.com had a similar tool ages ago named Ask City’s Shape Search Tool but since Ask dropped their maps program, the feature died with it. It all starts with a search with loc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Yahoo: Maps & Local | Yahoo: Search

Yahoo is following Google by rolling out its own version of Google Instant, with a twist. Called "Rich Search Assist," the feature automatically shows results as you type, though only in the top half of the page. Meet Rich Search Assist The screenshot below shows an example of this: As you type, Yahoo suggests search topics using its preexisting Yahoo Search Assist service. But now, next to the suggestions, Yahoo flashes up a closer look at the first result you'd get for each topic. As you move down through the other suggestions, the preview changes to match those. The short vid [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Instant | Search Features: Query Refinement | Top News | Yahoo: Search