« Previous post
Next post »

February 25, 2008

Yahoo Announces Open Search Platform

Michael Arrington

62 comments »

Yahoo will soon be allowing third parties to enhance the Yahoo Search experience. The new platform, codenamed “SearchMonkey” and officially called Open Search Platform, will consist of a set of APIs that allow third parties to modify search results on Yahoo by adding images, structured data and additional deep links.

The altered results can contain far more information than the current link and a bit of text from the website. For example, Yelp (a user generated local business review site), one of the launch partners, will include a photo, review information and the address and phone number of the business.

Some modifications will be turned on for users by default; others will only appear for users who’ve chosen to add them. Amit Kumar, the product lead for the Open Search Platform, says that the desired effect is similar to Greasemonkey, a Firefox addon that allows users to see modified versions of websites (thus the codename SearchMonkey).

Third parties will have an incentive to get users to add their Yahoo search modification, which in turn can drive more traffic to their sites. One thing third parties cannot change, though, are the order of results (see Erick’s post that touches on this issue here). They can simply change the way a result linking to one of their pages appears to the searcher, and add additional rich media and links to structured data.

When this launches anyone will be able to create their own modifications and promote them - users can add as many as they like.

Below is a screenshot of a different search, for “hillary clinton.” The New York Times has altered the result to include links to other election news, debate analysis, and added data for current delegate count and total money raised:

CrunchBase Information
Yahoo! Open Search Platform
Information provided by CrunchBase
  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. AccuraCast Search Daily News

    February 26th, 2008 at 9:24 am

  2. Removing All Doubt

    February 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am

  3. nicolas leroy

    February 26th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  4. links for 2008-02-27 « Breyten’s Dev Blog

    March 5th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

  5. Yahoo Open Search Platform announced - The Frontend

    April 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am

  6. Programozható keresőt csinál a Yahoo | doransky

    April 20th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

  7. Yahoo Open Search Platform Launches Into Private Beta

    April 24th, 2008 at 8:28 am

  8. Business News Research » Yahoo SearchMonkey Launches Into Private Beta

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

  9. The New Yahoo: Sticky, Viral, And Most Of All, Friendly

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  10. Sean on Life» Blog Archive » Microsoft’s Gift to Yahoo!

    May 3rd, 2008 at 8:31 pm

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. bs

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

    wow nice… very good move by yahoo

  2. Zeke

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

    WOW, this is huge!

  3. random reader

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

    great.
    i was looking forward to it from google soon. yahoo hit ti first. cool.

  4. browse

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

    nice concept.

    i’m assuming this is just metadata that google et al. could easily support. yahoo is not a search company. they’re going to have a really hard time getting traction against google.

  5. Brian Breslin

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    so is there any more info on this? people are forgetting yahoo still drives millions of searches a day.

  6. YDRIVE

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    Good stuff — for anything that improves the user experience, which this certainly will.

  7. Jerry Garcia

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

    Whisky bottles, and brand new cars, Oak tree your in my way

  8. i am under age

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:38 pm

    another right thing Yahoo did lately. no wonder they rejected MS’s bid. Keep them coming~

  9. Hashim Warren

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    Yawn.

    Didn’t Google attempt this with Subscribed Links? And before that, didn’t A9 attempt this with OpenSearch?

  10. Matt

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    very cool. or perhaps i, like others, am just more willing to disciple for yahoo in the wake of this whole MS debacle… we would lose innovations like this in that merger.

  11. Simplebucket

    February 25th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    Yahoo is finally getting it.. this could prove to be the most promising thing that they are doing to get back into search

  12. yeah

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    i loved the yahoo’s suggestions thing.. waiting to see more structured results, so i dont have to clik the link and then search for info on it.

  13. mhater

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    cool…. you go Yahoo!!!

    btw, where did you get the pre-launch info from???

  14. Steven Bao

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

    Great move by Yahoo!. Definitely the right direction to go in, but I won’t be surprised if Google comes out with this soon.

  15. nice

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

    I like…Michael, any chance we’ll see enhanced CrunchBase company listings in Yahoo results sometime soon…? That would be cool (but would certainly impact traffic to the finance pages ;) )

  16. jack

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    Can’t believe this. Yahoo have done a great job

  17. Andrew

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    as ask.com proved, you can build a visually appealing interface, and people will still go to Google

  18. Zeke

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    @andrew, it is not just visually appealing, it is one step to semantic web, how can people overlook it?

  19. Henry Work

    February 25th, 2008 at 10:43 pm

    A ’sanctioned’ GreaseMonkey platform is interesting… GreaseMonkey is supposed to be this rebel of a tool where customization is at the whim of the users and to the chagrin of the developers. Don’t like ads? Don’t like an entire feature of a website? Install a user script. Customize. That Yahoo! is investing in this idea sort of warps this user-centric concept a bit. Interesting.

  20. No Surprise

    February 25th, 2008 at 11:04 pm

    Very nice move by Yahoo! :-)

  21. deb

    February 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    btw, yahoo search share also increased in Jan 2008.
    http://blogs.barrons.com/techt.....hoobarrons

  22. Shimi

    February 25th, 2008 at 11:28 pm

    Cool I hope Omgili will do with Yahoo what they did with Google:

    http://google.omgili.com

  23. kuldeep

    February 25th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

    very good move..I think yahoo will restore confidence in users and developers by this…this will be serious competition to Google.

    I am still missing techcrunch’s opinion in this matter, please just dont deliver the news..thats not you! :)

  24. Brendan Jarvis

    February 26th, 2008 at 12:37 am

    the site appears to be broken. the stylesheet is not loading.

  25. Juan Bau

    February 26th, 2008 at 12:54 am

    Very smart

  26. olin

    February 26th, 2008 at 1:42 am

    This is awesome news! I can’t wait to test it out by pushing up enhanced listing for Kanu Commitments - http://www.kanuhawaii.org/ - that include number of members, comments, impacts, etc.

  27. Easy

    February 26th, 2008 at 2:14 am

    Nice, but as others have hinted, is it defensible?

    Presumably the OSP calls for sites to put up additional listing metadata for Yahoo to crawl.

    But why couldn’t Google crawl this metadata too?

  28. Rushabh Choksi

    February 26th, 2008 at 2:55 am

    that is cool.

  29. baah-baah-the-black-sheep

    February 26th, 2008 at 3:05 am

    You can make it all sing and dance, but if it doesn’t find the right stuff I won’t use it. And I don’t.

  30. Johnny B

    February 26th, 2008 at 3:34 am

    Hey Yahooo !

    I think this is innovation !
    Really cool !

  31. Harry Hacker

    February 26th, 2008 at 4:26 am

    Let the innovation begin.

  32. Andrey Golub

    February 26th, 2008 at 5:26 am

    Complements to Yahoo!
    it’s the great move, I think this really could start a revolution in the Search Engine industry!

    now for how to use the moment-
    If I could be the one who makes decisions at SPOCK (People Search Engine 2.0, http://www.spock.com)- I’d definitely ask the Engineering Team guys to dig in this direction.

    by doing this, Spock could demonstrate to the whole world that they have the data anyone else hasn’t and couldn’t have on the Web/ Web 2.0.

  33. UltimuM

    February 26th, 2008 at 5:34 am

    http://www. i-guide .ro
    http://www. i-guide .ro
    http://www. i-guide .ro
    http://www. i-guide .ro

  34. Andrew J Scott

    February 26th, 2008 at 5:59 am

    This could have a far reaching impact; I’m surprised its not bigger news (I cant help feel it would have been were it Google? ;-)

    We can incorporate this into Rummble content; once the world settles and embraces open micro formats (or other) for friend-relationships, we can then provide personalized results from Rummbles trust network VIA the Yahoo search results…

    You read it here first… ;-)

    Andrew
    Founder, http://www.rummble.com

  35. google fanboys --

    February 26th, 2008 at 6:31 am

    Yahoo and Ask are really trying to improve search for users (and now it looks like Yahoo is reaching out to developers and publishers too) — google is resting on it’s laurels while trying to squeeze every last ounce of cash from their search.

    Who would you rather support?

    As others have said, Google will probably try to copy this - heck they put out some buckets with search suggestions after Yahoo’s last big launch… Lame…

  36. Anonymous Coward

    February 26th, 2008 at 6:31 am

    What seems to missing from this article are two important facts from the original blog:

    1. You cannot reorder the search results that you get back from Yahoo OpenSearch. With old Yahoo Web Services (YWS) you could reorder the results as you please. This is an important distinction. Reordering based on other attributes is the key to the search mashups that SEOs are looking for. Without this there is little value they can add other than making the results look prettier and providing deeper links. They cannot perform their own revenue optimization independently. Yahoo will reorder the results for them - but I will come to that in a minute.

    2. What is missing from this TC article is this - “Here is how it works: website owners like Yelp, WebMD, The New York Times, and anyone else can supply us with their data and our patented Machined Learned Ranking helps ensure these results are presented to users at the right time”. Wow. So Yahoo will support OpenSearch and provide more attributes in the search results but only if site owners provide the data to them first. So in order for mashups to change the order they have to contribute their attributes to Yahoo first.

    In short Yahoo is further restricting how site owners can mashup the results in exchange for them contributing their valuable optimization data back to Yahoo. Genius.

  37. Brad Jasper

    February 26th, 2008 at 7:03 am

    #9, Yes they did, see http://www.google.com/coop/subscribedlinks/

    Yawn.

  38. Tom Chi

    February 26th, 2008 at 7:31 am

    @37 and 9…

    There are a couple important differences with Subscribed Links, the main one being that useful apps will be turned on by default. As Danny Sullivan and others have pointed out, this means the program might actually get some use!

  39. CanCar

    February 26th, 2008 at 7:55 am

    This is an important distinction. Reordering based on other attributes is the key to the search mashups that SEOs are looking for. Without this there is little value they can add other than making the results look prettier and providing deeper links.

  40. Dustin Mooney

    February 26th, 2008 at 8:15 am

    Wow, I like it! I am a Google’er by nature but this could be a reason to switch. But my main question is, how long before Google has the same thing? Scribed Links to me is not the same thing… I think google should have a picture beside their top search results along with a description that actually makes sense (because many times they don’t ). I also think they should proved options (i.e. the ability to turn off the pictures, etc).

    Google will come back with something great, as they always do. They are just an innovative company… similar in that way to Apple.

  41. Jeff O'Connor

    February 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am

    Yahoo! needs to start integrating their own properties and services into this results. Then we’ll see how much traction they have against Google.

    I don’t care if the data lives inside or outside of the walled garden; I just want it to be good. Yahoo! has a leg-up on providing good relevant content; with Google it’s garbage-in/garbage out sometimes.

  42. Jeff O'Connor

    February 26th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Re: #39 - I don’t necessarily agree with that. Suppose you can make a secured purchase of an item directly through the search results rather than dealing with click-through on a site.

    This approach, once it’s adopted by the other major search players, is going to completely change the way that we surf the Web. Many sites are going to have to offer themselves up as consumable services rather than destinations.

  43. Steve Ickman

    February 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am

    So is Yahoo actually supporting the OpenSearch protocol with this? I don’t think that’s the case. If they were they would be talking about how 3rd parties could add completely new data sources and not just change the look & feel of their results…

    I think the title “Yahoo Announces Open Search Platform” is a bit missleading if they’re not actually supporting OpenSearch. It’s like saying “Yahoo Announces a Really Simple Syndication Platform” but it’s not RSS based…

  44. Markus Thomson

    February 26th, 2008 at 11:21 am

    Something doesn’t sit right for me, or perhaps I don’t fully understand.

    “Third parties will have an incentive to get users to add their Yahoo search modification, which in turn can drive more traffic to their sites.”

    What exactly is the incentive to develop these modifications if users are only going to be at your site once (to install the modification presumably)? After that, how are you to drive traffic? Are you allowed to put links to your site right in the SERPs?

    I don’t get it.

  45. matt

    February 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    Good things coming out of Y! Search. … now if only the core results were better!

  46. Australian Affordable SEO PPC Services

    February 26th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    I think it is great. In terms of SEO, this will make SEO more user-friendly.

    ProactiveSEO
    SEO & PPC for SMEs

  47. Issyk-Kul Karakol

    February 26th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    All above described is free to do with Yahoo results, right?

  48. Jeff the Great

    February 27th, 2008 at 11:18 am

    So how do I start editing Yahoo! search results? I cant find any info from Yahoo about how to get started….still in closed beta?

  49. Todd Lucier

    February 28th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    It’s nice to know that I can create another home page, or perhaps a few new doorway pages for my site, even if they are small. Nice. Will Google’s troubles continue as a result?

  50. Aditya Sakhuja

    March 1st, 2008 at 12:23 am

    Its certainly a good way of providing flexibility in providing the right type of view to the user - Semantic web allows relating and making inferences easier. How would it be like to combine the new yahoo framework to the underlying semantic web, which we assume is present ? The effectiveness of the new yahoo framework could increase, would nt it ?

  51. Christina Lee

    March 1st, 2008 at 7:54 am

    This feature isn’t publicly available yet. You can sign up at http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/open.html if you would like to stay in the loop.

  52. Rocky R

    March 19th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    Gr8 News that Finally yahoo plans to go the semantic way . Will lead to intelligent searches. !!!

« Previous post
Next post »