Yahoo Quick Links are little links found beneath some of the search results at Yahoo Search. As an example, a search on barry schwartz at Yahoo Search brings up a Wikipedia entry for the other Barry Schwartz with Quick Links; it looks like this:

I have been covering Yahoo Quick Links for a while and got some official answers from Yahoo about how they work. In short, Yahoo Quick Links can happen through both natural and paid means.

Buying Yahoo Quick Links

Yes, you can buy Quick Links for your listings. Yahoo told me “clients participating in Search Submit Pro can submit their Quick Links to Yahoo Search.”

Submission to Yahoo’s Search Submit Pro program does not guarantee that you will see Quick Links. All submissions must first past “strict quality guidelines” before they are approved and visible in the search results.

I suspect an example of a site participating in this program is mytravel.com. A search on mytravel.com at Yahoo will return results from mytravel.com and show you Quick Links that I believe happen because of the Search Submit Pro program.

Those participating in Yahoo’s Search Submit Pro can submit these Quick Links via a user interface found within the Search Submit Pro console.

Free Yahoo Quick Links

In my example above, I showed you how Wikipedia results have Quick Links. Yahoo has confirmed that those Quick Links are not paid for. In fact, Wikipedia is part of a “pilot program” where Yahoo is testing out the user experience before deciding if they should expand the program to roll out more quick links. At this point, Yahoo did not confirm if they will doing so or not.

Here’s another example of confirmed, free Quick Links. Some Yahoo Local links might end up as Quick Links.

For instance, a search on walmart returns a link to “Walmarts near you” that link to Yahoo Local results.

I asked how would it work if Yahoo expanded the program? If Yahoo would have to automate this process more, how would Yahoo’s algorithms work? Of course, this is very sensitive information, so they couldn’t tell me much, but they did tell me this:

Popularity of the page and internal navigational structure are two of several tools available when determining the Yahoo! Quick Links. For example, we use navigational structure information obtained with Wikipedia’s help to determine the quick links in that example.

For more on Yahoo’s Quick Links: - Going deeper into the Wikipedia, Yahoo Search Blog - Fewer clicks, more answers…, Yahoo Search Blog - Quick Links Added to Yahoo! Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable - Another Look At Yahoo! “Quick Links” in Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable - Yahoo! Search Submit Pro Gives You Yahoo! Quick Links, Search Engine Roundtable

Related Topics: Yahoo: SEO | Yahoo: User Interface

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About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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