October 9, 2009

Yahoo! Search Filters Now Shows Sponsored Ads

If you're conducting a search on Yahoo! and use one of the filters on the left hand side to narrow your search, you may now see Sponsored Ads. The ads will appear on filtered results for selected sites who are also Yahoo! advertisers. Here's an example.

Let's say you're searching for "argyle sweater." You filter the results by JC Penney. The ad that JC Penney placed for the larger "argyle sweater" search will also appear in the filtered search that display only pages from the company's website.

This won't change the bidding for placement in the original, broader search. But the competition will be nixed, once the filter is in place.

How do you get your site listed as a filter? Yahoo! isn't revealing the secret sauce, but says it uses many factors including listings' quality, popularity and user response to determine which sites get the filter treatment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 7, 2009

Yahoo!: We Still Care About Search and Here's How

Yahoo! is addressing the post-Microsoft search deal sentiment that they've given up on search. Over on their Search Marketing blog, they're talking about things to come in the paid search space.

Rich Ads in Search - Yahoo! says their initial tests have improved click-through rates as much as 25%. This month, they'll expand rich ads in search to large brand advertisers. If you do get access, it's ultimately the conversion rate that matters the most, so keep that in mind.

Ad Delivery Report - Launched last month, the report allows you to see which ads appear on partner sites. It also allows you to block sites that aren't converting well for you.

New Web Search - Just a couple of weeks ago, Yahoo! rolled out their new search. The biggest change was the UI, which featured a new 3 column look.

Network Distribution - Coming next year will allow you to separate bids for Yahoo! and partner channels.

Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop - Also coming next year, this will allow you to manage search ad campaigns offline. The tool is currently in beta and if you're interested in testing it, you can sign up here.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 22, 2009

Yahoo! Rolls Out New Web Search to All Users

Last month, Yahoo! tested a new search that featured 3 columns and updated search results. Now, they're rolling out the new web search to all users in the U.S., U.K., France, Spain, Mexico, and India. Image and video search results are being revamped as part of the update as well.

Within the three column look, the left hand side features search filters including the ability to refine by sites such as Wikipedia and Twitter.

There's also Search Pad, which allows easy note-taking for searches you're conducting. Search Pad will track sites you've visited, but you can also type your own notes into the tool.

From a tech standpoint, much of Yahoo!'s new search was rebuilt. The foundational markup/CSS/JavaScript for the SRP design and core functionality has been rebuilt completely from scratch. As a result, Yahoo! says load time is faster.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

August 25, 2009

Yahoo Updates Search Results Pages

Yahoo is rolling out some changes to its search results pages, with a new three-column design that highlights Yahoo apps, related searches, and more filtering options.

The changes are being tested with a random set of Yahoo users, and are expected to roll out to all users later this year.

In the left-hand column of Yahoo's search results, users will be presented with results filtering options. These include links to searches on related concepts, the ability to limit results to those from Yahoo pages or other third-party sites, or filtering results based on type of content.

Yahoo has also made some enhancements to Search Assist, the well-received query-refinement technology launched in 2007. Search Assist refines queries by providing related topics as searchers type to assist them in finding the right search term that will deliver the most relevant information. Some of the "related concepts" data from Search Assist is also being exposed in the left-hand column, and Search Assist is also being added to search boxes elsewhere on Yahoo's network.

It may seem surprising to see Yahoo rolling out search updates after it announced last month that it was getting out of the search business. There are two answers to this question. The first is that these technologies have been in the works since before the deal was made, so it only makes sense to see them through.

Besides that, Yahoo has said it will continue to innovate in the user interface part of search, even when it begins using Bing's index and results. These changes would fall into that category, Yahoo hopes they will provide a way of differentiating it from Bing.

Yahoo also updated its Mail and Messenger applications. Among those changes are moves to make Yahoo Mail more intertwined with social media. Users will be able to see what their friends and family are sharing online in various social media sites, right from their Yahoo Mail inbox.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 29, 2009

The Yahoo-Microsoft Deal from Searchers' Perspective

So by now, you've probably heard about the Microsoft - Yahoo search deal. You may even have read my take that this will be good for advertisers. If not, go back and start there, so we're all caught up.

I got responses from several other search marketers saying the deal looked good from their side too. We'll be putting up a collection of industry responses later today. In the meantime, I wanted to look at the deal from a searcher perspective. Is it good for them too?

For most searchers, Google = search. They don't know or care about the fact that Microsoft just launched a search engine, and unless they have Yahoo as their home page (likely decided by their ISP), they don't have much use for Yahoo Search either.

Will a combined Microsoft-Yahoo search change any of that? Not likely.

"The deal is both good and bad for searchers. Bad in that there will be less choice. I personally prefer to have more options rather than less. Good for searchers in that Bing is actually a pretty good search engine," said Amanda Watlington, owner of Searching for Profit.

Basically, it's going to depend on just how good Bing is, and how good it will become, given the additional volume pumping through its platform. That volume should generate more relevant ads, since there will be more competition. It should also allow Microsoft to innovate with its algorithms faster, since it will have more data to work with.

Andrew Goodman, principal at Page Zero Media, agrees: "It's a good deal for searchers. Running a high-quality consumer search property is expensive and requires constant innovation. By consolidating resources these companies can focus on their strengths," Goodman said. "Microsoft has done a great job developing a consumer-oriented search engine in Bing. They may also have access to data from Yahoo that can help them to refine it."

Microsoft has proven with Bing and adCenter that they can not only keep up with Google, but actually improve on what's already out there in the marketplace. With a huge surge in traffic through those platforms, they should theoretically be able to improve on their ideas, refining their algorithms, adding features and improving relevance.

But, as has been said many times before, it's going to take something more than just "a little better" than Google to get searchers to switch. What may happen is that Yahoo-Microsoft becomes a more credible number-two. That in itself could be good for searchers, if only because it forces Google to innovate a bit quicker, given that it's nearest competitor will be quite a bit nearer than it's used to.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

February 24, 2009

Yahoo Adds Behavioral Targeting Features for Search and Display Ads

Yahoo today unveiled a trio of behaviorally targeted ad options for both search and display ads.

Search Retargeting for Display Ads -- lets advertisers target display advertising based on a user's search activity. So a user that searches on a term like "sandals" could be served a display ad for footwear elsewhere on Yahoo's network.
Enhanced Retargeting for Display Ads -- allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo network based on user activity on an advertiser's site. Going beyond standard site retargeting, the new technology would allow an advertiser to target users who visit an airline website to check offers for flights from SFO-JFK, and serve them a personalized offer for that specific flight when they visit a page within the Yahoo Network.
Enhanced Targeting for Search Ads -- adds capabilities for Sponsored Search and Content Match ads, including ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search. New features are designed to extend the advertiser's control over where and when an ad is shown at both the campaign and ad group level, including what time of day and day of the week an advertiser would like campaigns to run (ad scheduling), and what age and gender they'd like to reach (demographic). Advertisers will be able to vary their bids for different segments in order to increase their ability to reach the desired audience.

Much of this technology was developed through Yahoo's BlueLithium division, which was acquired by Yahoo in September 2007.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 4, 2009

Yahoo Patent App Sheds Light on SEO Priorities

A recent patent application from Yahoo highlights several factors that Yahoo itself proposes to use for optimizing Web pages for its search engine, according to the ever-vigilant patent-watcher Bill Slawski.

The application, "Automated System to Improve Search Engine Optimization on Web Pages," was filed in June 2007 and published last month. It proposes a process that would look at search query logs and browsing activity of users, as well as semantic relationships and timeliness of query terms.

It would break up a page into "units" of content, and emphasize those units that best relate to the most popular keywords and concepts. That could be done by updating page titles, URLs, meta descriptions and meta keywords, alt attributes for images, and headings on pages.

This is a patent application only, and not a real-life service. It may become a real service someday, so it's worth considering what that would mean for search marketers, and site owners in general. How well this idea would work would depend heavily on the implementation. As Slawski points out:

SEO isn’t about trying to get the most traffic to a site for the most popular terms possible.

Instead, it’s about understanding the objectives of a site, and knowing enough about an audience that might be interested in what that site offers to help those searchers and those sites find each other. That can involve finding the right words to use on the pages of a site instead of the most popular words.

For this idea to work, it's first of all got to be an opt-in program. Hopefully, Yahoo will learn that lesson from the current Yahoo Search Marketing "account optimization" issues.

The overall idea actually seems to closely parallel that program, which changes an advertiser's ads, based on similar kinds of data from Yahoo that the patent application describes. The current program is not automated, however, but one can assume (hope?) that Yahoo is using some of the same data to inform the account managers that are making the changes.

As the objections to that program point out, Yahoo can't possibly know an advertiser's business better than the business owner. And as with the current program, if these proposed changes were offered as suggestions, it could be a very popular service, especially for large site owners.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 10, 2008

Yahoo Launches BOSS: Build your Own Search Service

Yahoo is taking the next step in its "open" strategy with the launch today of BOSS: Build your Own Search Service. The BOSS program will allow third parties to build their own search engine using Yahoo's index and ranking methodologies as a base.

Building a competitive search engine would require upwards of $300 million in capital investments, according to Prabhakar Raghavan, chief strategist for Yahoo Search. Besides the hardware involved, there is a limited pool of talent available that can create the query handling, ranking, indexing and crawling infrastructure. Add to that the need for massive amounts of data to achieve relevance, and it becomes nearly impossible for smaller players to compete.

Yahoo is changing all of that with BOSS, Raghavan said.

"This is a bold direction for any search principal to take," he said. "We're expecting this to disrupt the market, and that includes ourselves."

By disrupting the search engine market, Yahoo hopes to bring more choice to consumers, while also taking away some of Google's share. Where Search Monkey opened up Yahoo's SERPs, BOSS opens up Yahoo's infrastructure and technology, and extends it outside of Yahoo.

Using the BOSS APIs, partners will be able to take Yahoo's search results and apply their own ranking criteria, creating their own customized search engine. The BOSS API is based on Yahoo's full index of Web search, news and image search results, as well as spell correction, Raghavan said.

There are three levels to the BOSS program. The first is a self-service API, which will be available to partners who want to build their own search engine using Yahoo results as a base. Examples could include social, vertical, or visual search engines. The second is an API program for academics, dubbed BOSS University. Yahoo is partnering with the computer science departments of several top universities to allow them to use the BOSS program in their research.

Yahoo will also offer partners the BOSS Mashup Framework, a software library that provides tools for data joins and other tasks. It will also offer some ready-made SERP templates, which partners will be able to customize for themselves. Since Yahoo is not in control of the way partners rank results, it has made it clear that these BOSS results are not allowed to be attributed to Yahoo.

The third tier is BOSS Custom, a program where Yahoo will work with a very limited set of partners to customize their integration of Yahoo's results into their own search engines. These partners will generally fit into two main categories, Raghavan said. The first includes companies with their own ranking and/or presentation methodologies, such as semantic search engine Hakia. Hakia is using Yahoo's results, to which it applies its own "secret sauce," he said. Hakia is not replacing its own indexing process completely, but rather using BOSS to accelerate the process.

The other category of partner includes companies with proprietary data, such as user profiles or behavior, that can be used to affect search results. One such company is Me.dium, a browser toolbar that lets users connect with each other and find related sites recommended based on other users' surfing habits. Me.dium will use Yahoo's BOSS data to create a social search engine that will rank results based on what its users say is important.

At launch, all reordering of search results must be done by the partner. Over time, Yahoo expects to begin offering "knobs" that will allow partners to dial up or down certain criteria in the results, such as favoring recent results, or results from blogs, Raghavan said.

Eventually, Yahoo expects to monetize the program by requiring partners to show Yahoo ads alongside their results, in which partners will share the revenue generated. Yahoo is holding off on doing so at launch to allow time to monitor the quality of traffic coming in from BOSS partners, to ensure that advertisers would not be hurt by having their ads displayed in that manner, Raghavan said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

July 1, 2008

Yahoo Releases Search Index Update

Yahoo has announced its latest search index update. So, if you see a change up in your rankings, now you know why. But earlier news of new crawling abilities for Adobe Flash don't appear to be part of this update. Instead, expect to see those updates in the future.

“Yahoo! is committed to supporting webmaster needs with plans to support searchable SWF and is working with Adobe to determine the best possible implementation,” said Sean Suchter, vice president Yahoo! Search Technology Engineering.

Yahoo's last update occurred on May 28, 2008.

Are you seeing any changes in your Yahoo rankings? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Provides Flash Technology to Google and Yahoo for Better Indexing

For years SEOs have been about the inability of search engines to crawl flash pages. But now Adobe is making an effort to keep Flash in the web development toolbox. They've announced the provision of Flash technology to Google and Yahoo in order to facilitate the indexing of sites and pages created with Flash.

“Until now it has been extremely challenging to search the millions of RIAs and dynamic content on the Web, so we are leading the charge in improving search of content that runs in Adobe Flash Player,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “We are initially working with Google and Yahoo! to significantly improve search of this rich content on the Web, and we intend to broaden the availability of this capability to benefit all content publishers, developers and end users.”

Over at the Google Webmaster Central Blog, an FAQ was posted offering up more details about the update. Here are some highlights:

Google will now be able to better crawl the text content of SWF files. The content includes buttons, menus, self-contained websites developed in Flash and "everything in between."
Google can use the text it crawls to provide a descriptive "snippet" for its search results.
Links included in Flash content will also be crawled.
If your Flash file is loaded by JavaScript, Google won't be able to read it
If your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file or another SWF file, Google will index that separately from the original Flash file.

Google says it can't crawl images, videos or FLV files because they do not contain text content.

What do you think about search engines crawling Flash? Are you more inclined to use Flash on your sites now? Leave your reaction in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 13, 2008

Jerry Yang Opens Up About Google Deal, Keeping Yahoo Independent

Jerry Yang has opened up about the non-exclusive search advertising deal with Google with a post over at the Yahoo! Anecdotal blog.

Yang started off by writing, "It's no longer a rumor." Considering Yahoo! issued a press release regarding a test of Adsense last April, I'm not sure rumor is the right word here, but let's move on.

Yang justified the deal by saying the move is part of Yahoo!'s open strategy:

"WebMD sells their audiences on Yahoo!, Yelp can customize how their local search results appear using Search Monkey, advertisers and publishers will buy and sell in an open marketplace with our upcoming AMP! from Yahoo!, and we're now opening our paid search results to Google."

Then, Yang offered assurance that Yahoo! wasn't exiting the paid search biz, but is instead positioning themselves better within the marketplace:

"As search and display continue their convergence, it puts Yahoo! in a better position to innovate and compete aggressively with Google and others for ad dollars."

One sentence stood out above all the rest.

"An independent search business is critical to our future."

Shareholders could grab onto that statement as a sign that Yang was never interested in selling to Microsoft, something Carl Icahn has been saying as part of his proxy board campaign.

Google also wants an independent Yahoo, per statements by CEO Eric Schmidt earlier this week. Though, we would assume that's for different reasons.

Of course, in order to make money from this deal, Yahoo needs to get eyeballs to their site and searches need to be conducted. But their numbers are falling in U.S. search queries, so they're going to have to do a lot more than a Google deal to save themselves.

Yang seems to understand this, "It is, of course, just one step. We'll continue to look at all of our alternatives to advance our strategies and enhance growth and profitability." But he doesn't have much time to prove himself before the August 1 shareholder meeting.

What do you think about Yang's statements? Is comparing Google to WebMd and Yelp like comparing apples and oranges? Did his blog help or hurt him with shareholders? Sound off in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 28, 2008

Yahoo Rolls Out Search Index Update

If you're seeing a shift in your Yahoo rankings, you're not alone. Yahoo has announced that it is rolling out updates to its search index. Writing on the Yahoo Search blog, Priyank Garg and Sharad Verma said, "We'll be rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days, but expect the update will be completed soon. As you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index."

Have you noticed a difference? The last time website owners noticed a difference in Yahoo was the middle of April. Let us know what you're seeing in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 13, 2008

Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins Interviewed by Eric Enge

SEW Expert Eric Enge published a terrific interview on his Stone Temple blog with Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins, who keynoted SES New York. What makes it a great read? Eric asks spot-on questions that cut to the heart of the matter.

Eric Enge: In New York you talked about the future of search, but the thing that really struck me in the conversation was the notion of “webmaster supplied content” communicated essentially directly to the search engine. Maybe you can tell me whether that notion resonates with you in just your general thoughts on the concepts that you laid out in the presentation?

Andrew Tomkins: I'll start by saying that characterization of webmasters and publishers sharing more structured representation of their content is exactly what we are talking about. I guess it's easy to think of it as sharing it with a search engine.

The exchange that really impressed me was late in the interview when Eric and Andrew discuss a site's authority:

Andrew Tomkins: Understanding how authoritative a site is, then specifically for each part of the site; what they are about, how much you should trust them and how much people tend to believe them. How deep they go; all of this is very valuable from the ranking standpoint.

photo credit: Marc_Smith in Flickr

Eric Enge: You could have a site that has a million links, and that has many sections like I talked about, but the tennis section for some reason has very few inbound links from third party sites. Whereas, the camping section has half a million links, where you would actually allocate trust differently by site section.

Andrew Tomkins: That's a great example of a good cue that you would want to pay attention to.

If you care about how search enignes work and where they're headed in the future, this interview is a must-read.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 8, 2008

Yahoo Tests 'Glue Pages' in India

Yahoo is testing a new home page design for its search engine in India. Dubbed 'Glue Pages,' the design has a 3-newspaper look with modules reminiscent of iGoogle or some RSS newsreaders like Netvibes. However, while iGoogle widgets are all over the place design-wise, Glue Pages modules have a clean, uniform look. On the other hand, you can't drag and drop the modules or choose from a catalog of modules to customize your page. Instead, Glue Pages changes up the modules and the placement of those modules according to the keyword that is being searched.

The organic search results are in the left column. Because we're so used to paid search listings being in a sidebar, these organic listings look like sponsored results. (Don't worry, there are still 10 organic results per page.)

On a search for "cell phones," a Google blog search module (of all things!) was the top center module. But on a search for "tea," a MyRecipes.com module took center stage (and that Iced Mint tea recipe looks delicious!). Other modules include Yahoo! Answers, Flickr images, and How Stuff Works.

Glue Pages facilitates both discovery and answers, something that searchers and Web 2.0 users love. On both of my searches, however, the Yahoo! Answers module was placed at the bottom. And with the success of Answer sites over the past year (with Yahoo! Answers leading the pack), perhaps the module should be tested above the fold. But perhaps that will be part of the test in the future.

Check out the screenshots below or go and test Glue Pages for yourself.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 6, 2008

Yahoo Releases Safe Search Product into Beta

Yahoo has teamed up with McAfee to develop SearchScan, a new safe search service. Here's what you need to know:

Provides always-on alerts to users for "risky" sites with security concerns including spyware, adware and other malicious software
Identifies sites that have shown bad email practices such as flooding user in-boxes with spammy emails
Available for Yahoo! Search users in the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Spain

"The new SearchScan feature from Yahoo! Search makes searching the Web even safer than ever before. No other search engine today offers this level of warning before visiting sites that can damage or infect a user's PC and cost them valuable time and money," said Vish Makhijani, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Search. "Through this partnership with McAfee, we can offer users a safer search experience and drive more users to make Yahoo! Search their starting point on the Web."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:01 AM | Permalink

April 22, 2008

Yahoo Updates Search Algorithm, Fixes Delete URL Bug

Recently, search marketers have been noticing changes to Yahoo rankings. And now, Yahoo has plans to roll out updates to its crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms, as reported on the Yahoo Search Blog. Expect to see the changes unfold over the next few days as the updates are rolled out.

Yahoo also took the opportunity to announce a fix to the Delete URL function on its Site Explorer tool. Previously, some search marketers were experiencing problems with submitted URLs remaining on “pending” status for a bit too long.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:39 AM | Permalink

April 14, 2008

Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 Replaces Yahoo! Slurp Search Engine Crawler

The official launch of the new version of Yahoo! Search crawler comes as no surprise to members of Digital Point forums, readers of Search Engine Watch and attendees of SES New York, who saw Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins' keynote speech on the future of search.

Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 won't change the content Yahoo crawls on your site: the new Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 recognizes the same user-agent and all robots.txt directives for Yahoo! Slurp. The primary difference will be in your log files where you'll see Slurp 3.0.

Yahoo shared that the new bot (phased rollout over several weeks) will start crawling from a different and smaller set of IP addresses. No change of location, though. Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 will originate from the crawl.yahoo.net domain. So any reverse DNS checks to ID Yahoo's crawler will still work.

The big change: Yahoo's recommendation to stop using IP-based recognition and use reverse DNS identification instead.

Here's why:

Yahoo warns you might see a drop in crawl and coverage if you're using IP-based recognition. Best bet: switch to reverse DNS-based identification of Yahoo! Slurp if you're using any other method. The current set of IPs will disappear from your log files in the next few weeks.

Crawlers that similarly respect the Yahoo! Slurp directive but identify themselves more specifically, such as Yahoo! Slurp China and others, will not be impacted.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:03 PM | Permalink

Changes to Yahoo Updates Noticed

Just over a week after changes to Google SERPs were seen, over at Webmaster World, forum participants are noticing some changes going on in the Yahoo results.

Jgold454 kicked off the conversation:

I am noticing some changes/shuffling going on in my niche. Anyone else?

Textex also noticed a change:

I did some more thorough investigating and these results are really bad....

BillyS was finally seeing some relief since the last update:

Yahoo is like clockwork, pretty much rolling out a new update every 4-5 weeks. This update was right on time. The last one was announced on March 3rd.

We lost about 50% of our Y! traffic during the last update and we noticed a nice lift today.

FrankWeb wasn't thrilled with the wikis turning up in results:

Looks like an update to me. See wiki pages climbing to the top for many results. Why do they even want for each term a wiki to turn up. If I want a wiki explanation or information, I'll go to it myself. I find it a step back for search results.

Hat tip to Barry Schwartz

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:52 AM | Permalink

March 26, 2008

SEW Experts: Yahoo and the Future of Search

Because of spam, search engines had to stop trusting Webmasters to tell them about their site. Now, Yahoo is looking at new ways to get information from Webmasters. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "Yahoo and the Future of Search," Eric Enge explains the ways Yahoo is putting webmaster trust back into its search results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 20, 2008

Yahoo on the Future of Search

Where's search heading? Ask Yahoo's chief scientist, Andrew Tomkins. He'll be giving the morning keynote today at SES New York. While most search engines for the past 10 years have relied heavily on analyzing anchor text, links, and content to determine relevance, researchers at the top search engines have recently begun to look at other signals that might indicate search result relevance. Tomkins reveals a few hints at the future in today's SearchDay, "Where's Search Heading? Ask Yahoo's Chief Scientist."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:05 AM | Permalink

March 7, 2008

SEW Experts: Has Google Already Won?

With the imminent demise of Yahoo and Ask.com, Google seems to have cemented its near-total control of search. The monopolization of our industry is fast becoming a reality, and yet the users of search are oblivious. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Has Google Already Won?," Frank Watson laments the downfall of Ask.com and Yahoo, and what that might mean for Google.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 3, 2008

Does Page Layout Affect SEO?

Bill Slawski is reporting that Yahoo is joining the ranks of MSN and Google in an attempt to incorporate page layout into its web search algorithm. A new patent filed by the search engine examines how to estimate page elements without rendering the web page the way a browser does. As a result, the process for indexing a page could become faster.

The process involves creating object trees based on structural elements contained within the HTML code of a given web page. The goal is to give more weight to the unique content of a page versus the site-wide static content.

In other words, Yahoo wants to pay less attention to sidebars, headers, footers and other elements that are on every page of a site, and focus on the element that is exclusive to a single page. As a result, the links and content within the unique element will be given more weight compared to the static elements.

Slawski concludes that if you develop your own sites, then looking in-depth at the patent may be worth your while: If you build web pages, and you want an idea of how a search engine might be looking at and weighing the content of your pages, you may want to spend some time with this patent filing.

Considering that Google and Microsoft also have developed methods to segment the contents of web pages, It's not a bad idea to get a sense of how they all might be breaking pages down into parts.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:08 PM | Permalink

February 29, 2008

Aaron Wall Shows Yahoo Lagging On Indexing Sites

Seems Yahoo has really been falling behind in updating their databases, according to Aaron Wall's article today.

This is something all people who work in the SEO area should be taking notice of since Yahoo has had good conversion numbers for many of us and if the efforts to add more content are not being recognized by Yahoo then efforts may be better spent improving existing pages - though even this may not be possible.

Yahoo has gone through a number of changes both to its system and its personnel lately so hopefully this will soon be remedied.

Posted by Frank Watson at 6:58 PM | Permalink

February 26, 2008

Yahoo to Allow Publishers to Improve its Search Results

In another move toward openness, Yahoo is creating a platform to allow site owners to create plug-ins that its visitors can add to their Yahoo search accounts to see enhanced listings from that publisher in Yahoo Web search results. The plug-ins are intended to expose structured information, and provide more deep links into a site, images, or ratings and reviews, for example. In today's SearchDay, "Yahoo Opens Up Search Results," we'll take a closer look at the move.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:05 AM | Permalink

December 6, 2007

Yahoo Adds Support for Page-Level Exclusion Tags for Non-HTML Docs

Yahoo is giving webmasters more control over page-level directives to its Slurp crawler for non-HTML files.

The X-Robots-Tag is a page-level exclusion tag that is used to direct a search engine spider in how it should treat that page. Similar to the way a robots.txt file is used, or a meta tag, the X-Robots-Tag can use the NOINDEX, NOARCHIVE, NOSNIPPET, or NOFOLLOW tag to tell spiders not to index a page, not to display a cached version of a page in search results, not to display a summary of the page in search results, or not to crawl links on a page.

The difference is that the X-Robots-Tag directive is processed in the http header, so it can now be used on non-HTML pages like PDF files, Word documents, PowerPoint, video, and other file types. It can still be used on HTML pages as well.

Yahoo also gave a weather report: "Along with this change, we'll be rolling out additional changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days. We expect the update will be completed early next week, but you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index during this process."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:47 PM | Permalink

October 31, 2007

Yahoo Quietly Making Algorithms Changes

Yahoo announced they have been making changes to their crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the past few days. Guess we were all too busy discussing the impact of recent Google changes and buying and selling links etc.

If I am reading their blog numbering system - it was their 500th post. Way to go Yahoo!

What I liked about this announcement is they called for input - the post has link to a form to submit problems or feedback - guess Google does it by reading all the blog and forum noise.

Yahoo wins this round - they avoided the "slap" effect Google's changes have caused, while still changing their algorithms.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:22 PM | Permalink

October 2, 2007

Yahoo Search Gets Blended, Helpful

Yahoo today launched what it's calling the "new Yahoo Search." The biggest changes are the introduction of Search Assist, a pre-search query refinement tool that Yahoo has been testing since July; and blended search results that include more photos, videos, and Shortcuts.

Search Assist refines queries by providing related topics as searchers type to assist them in finding the right search term. It's similar to Yahoo's Search Suggest feature, which as the name implies suggests alternate queries, but Search Assist goes further by offering related topics as well as specific suggested queries as searchers type. This kind of recommendation and discovery tool is part of the Ask 3D interface, which offers pre-search query refinement suggestions and post-search related categories.

Blended search results are now available on all the top engines, with recent launches of Google Universal Search, Ask 3D, and Microsoft Live Search. Yahoo's version is closer to Microsoft's and Google's in that it includes multimedia results within the main results, instead of in designated areas like Ask uses.

Results are pulled from Yahoo properties, like Flickr, Upcoming, and Yahoo Answers; as well as third-party sites like YouTube. New today are the video inline results and Flickr inline results, as well as the Upcoming.org shortcuts.

"One thing we've learned since launching our own algorithmic search engine back in 2004 is that at the end of the day, people really don't want to search; they want to get things done," Tim Mayer, VP of search products, wrote on the Yahoo Search Blog. "Today, we're launching an all new Yahoo! Search experience that gets users the answers they're looking for quickly and easily, and often in one search."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:42 AM | Permalink

August 6, 2007

Yahoo Continues Search Suggestions Rollout

Yahoo has been on a search refinement kick lately, which continued on Friday with the release of Search Suggest for Yahoo Toolbar for Internet Explorer.

"We really believe that Search Suggestions improves your search experience. By automatically giving you suggestions based on what you've typed (as you're typing), you can get to what you're looking for faster," writes Yahoo Toolbar product manager Hua Ai on the Yahoo Search Blog. "We're driving to push it out to all your favorite search boxes."

Yahoo added the pre-search Search Suggest feature to its Web search on Yahoo.com last month, which had been available in the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox since March. In July, Yahoo also released Search Assist, a new Web search refinement tool.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:39 PM | Permalink

July 12, 2007

Yahoo Adds Search Suggest Feature

Yahoo has added a Search Suggest feature to its Web search box on Yahoo.com. A user is presented with a likely search term when they begin typing a query into the search box. It's intended to prevent misspellings, as well as aid in the discovery of refined or related queries.

The feature has been available in the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox since March.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:43 AM | Permalink

May 16, 2007

Yahoo's New Mission

In the wake of Yahoo's recent reorganization, Jeff Weiner, EVP of Yahoo's Network Division, has introduced a new mission statement that he says will help tie things together: “To connect people to their passions, communities, and the world's knowledge.”

"In this statement, we not only define our sense of purpose as a company, but also a strategic framework for the Network Division as well," writes Weiner.

The newly created Yahoo Network Division houses most of Yahoo's consumer-facing products, like Web Search and Answers; Yahoo Groups, Flickr and Bix; Yahoo Mail and Messenger; and its media and portal properties, including the Yahoo home page and My Yahoo.

He breaks down the statement into its parts:

"To connect people..." – "When we talk about connecting people we are specifically talking about connecting our consumers to their most essential needs, connecting our advertisers and publishers to their most valuable consumers, and connecting the dots internally to create far greater efficiencies and fully leverage the company's strengths."

"...to their passions..." – "In other words, we want to connect the right user to the right content at the right time. If we get this right, the implications are considerable. Consider that the one-size-fits-all content featured on most web sites clicks at only a fraction of the top algorithmic results in web search. Why? Because we know exactly what you are looking for when you do a query. However, for the most part we can only do our best to anticipate what you want when you are browsing your favorite property. The goal is to close that gap, and ultimately make your content browsing experience as fundamentally relevant as your web search experience."

"...their communities..." – "when we talk about connecting people to their communities, strategically we are talking about creating better user experiences not simply by knowing what you want, but also by leveraging who you know."

"...and the world's knowledge." – "we want to leverage our assets to build the most relevant, comprehensive, dynamic, and open repository of knowledge and content on the Web."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:47 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2007

Yahoo Lets Webmasters ID Non-Essential Page Elements

Using a new "robots-nocontent" attribute, webmasters will soon be able to tell Yahoo's spiders that certain elements or sections of a page are not the real "content" of the page, and so should not be included in Yahoo's index. For example, a webmaster could flag site navigation, ads, legal disclaimers, and other non-essential elements with the attribute, leaving the main content of a page to be spidered and indexed.

It's done by creating a class attribute called "robots-nocontent," which can be used on <P> tags for individual paragraphs, as well as on <DIV> and <SPAN> container tags.

Yahoo first proposed the idea at an Indexing Summit at SES New York in 2005, the same time that Google introduced the "rel=nofollow" attribute for links. The idea was floated again at the Robots.txt Summit in New York last month, where it was well-received by site owners.

For now, the attribute will only be supported by Yahoo. It remains to be seen whether the other engines accept it as a standard, as most now have with Google's nofollow attribute.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:29 PM | Permalink

April 4, 2007

Yahoo Alpha (beta) Tested Down Under

Yahoo is testing a new search interface called alpha, which meta-searches several Yahoo properties, and also allow users to add their own search service via OpenSearch RSS. Alpha, spotted this week by tech blogger Amit Agarwal, is the product of a Yahoo Australia Hack Day, according to the Alpha blog.

The search results page on Alpha are reminiscent of AskX. For example, a search for [New York Mets] on Alpha and the same search on AskX will show the main search results in the left column, with results from additional properties on the right. For Alpha, this means, Flickr, Yahoo Answers, YouTube, News Search, and Wikipedia by default. It also includes Yahoo's sponsored links results. For AskX, the answers come from Citysearch, Pricegrabber, blinkx, blog and news search.

It's also an expansion of the idea of a Google OneBox or Ask Smart Answer, both of which surface additional content from the search engine or its partners at the top of a page.

If users add their own search services, it becomes a meta-search engine, such as Vivisimo's Clusty, Rollyo, Google's Custom Search Engine, or Yahoo Search Builder. Its RSS remixing abilities are also reminiscent of Yahoo Pipes.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:36 PM | Permalink

March 28, 2007

Slurp's Change of Address

Yahoo's web crawler, affectionately known as Yahoo Slurp, is moving. According to the Yahoo Search Blog, Slurp will move from its domain of inktomisearch.com to crawl.yahoo.net. The crawlers will be switched over in phases over the next few weeks, starting immediately.

Identifying Slurp in robots.txt files will not be affected, as the user-agent name will remain the same, as will the IP addresses of the crawlers. However, any reverse DNS checks for the crawler identity or network access rules to allow inktomisearch.com need to be updated to allow for crawl.yahoo.net.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:49 PM | Permalink

January 22, 2007

Yahoo Confirms Index Update

Yahoo announced on the Yahoo Search blog on Friday that a search index update is underway.

"We are in the process of rolling out some changes to our search results. As usual, you may be seeing some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index throughout this process. This update began last night and should be complete very soon," writes Yahoo's Priyank Garg.

How's this affecting your sites? Share your experience at the SEW forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:51 AM | Permalink

December 18, 2006

2006 Top Searches

Following Yahoo's release on December 4 of its top searches for 2006, last week AOL, Lycos and MSN Live released their top searches for the year 2006. Google still has their 2005 review at Zeitgeist, along with recent monthly totals. Ask.com presents weekly lists, but has yet to release a 2006 year in review.

A closer look at these lists reveals some interesting questions about the differences in the data from engine to engine.

Looking at the slight differences between this data can be an interesting project, and can probably yield some good insight into both the user demographics of each of the engines

Paris Hilton is an interesting example to use in showing how search engines classify types of searches. In Yahoo! and in AOL, Paris is listed as a celebrity, yet she is found in top News searches for MSN Live. Does this mean that people search Live's (formerly search.msn.com) News category when they look for everyone's favorite socialite?

More can undoubtedly be read into the top overall searches reported for each portal. AOL reports: "weather" (does this mean they included all weather-inclusive searches or just the term "weather?"); Yahoo! says Britney Spears is number one (hmm...wonder if that includes people misspelling it?); MSN Live claims that the world wanted to know about Ronaldinho more than anyone or thing else; and Lycos puts Poker at number one. Again, others can fill in the blanks as to what they think the demographics most closely associated with each portal are.

It will be interesting to see what the top Google searches are. It would also be nice to have some more details as to how many misspellings were included in searches and perhaps how many of the searches for each top term were actually contained in a longer keyword phrase.

See also the discussions about this at the Yahoo! Search Blog, and the MSN Blog post that introduced their list. AOL has opened up the floor for discussion at the AOL Search Blog (thanks Susan for the link!). Lycos provides a platform for discussion which can be found at the Lycos 50 Blog. (Thanks Carolyn!)

(Note this story was edited after I discovered that Paris Hilton did make the top celebrity list at AOL. For some reason I missed that originally. Apologies to the AOL team for this oversight. CB)

Posted by Chris Boggs at 10:58 AM | Permalink

December 13, 2006

Yahoo! Organic Rankings Update Confirmed

Yahoo! has been updating its organic search results database since Sunday night and states they will complete the process by the end of today, December 13, 2006. Initial feedback is naturally louder on the negative side, but the topic is being discussed in various areas, including the Yahoo! Search Blog announcement from Tim Mayer.

Tim had actually commented on the story earlier at the WebmasterWorld Forums, under his sneaky alias of "Tim" in this thread about the latest Yahoo! update. WebmasterWorld appears to have been the first source indicating there was a shift happening.

The topic has raised some questions in regards to the timing, reminding some of the much maligned and often misunderstood Florida update that cost Google plenty in public relations costs. Barry Lloyd has a good recap of that at the Search Engine Journal.

The bottom line, however, seems to be that the majority of well-designed and deserving sites will likely remain roughly in the same position in the rankings, with a few good ones possibly slipping through. The majority of the noise around most of these updates comes from those that have lost position, and rarely do the good luck stories make headlines. A few of those from past updates can be found within the comments threads at MattCutts Blog .

One question to ask, is will this update affect YPN publishers in a way that Bourbon did to AdSense publishers as discussed in this thread at WMW?

Further discussion also at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Chris Boggs at 9:35 AM | Permalink

November 20, 2006

Yahoo Integrates Answers Into Search Results

Yahoo has finally officially integrated Yahoo Answers into the Yahoo Search results, according to an email we received from the company. We reported back a month and a half ago that Yahoo Tests Enhanced Yahoo Answers Integration In Search Results but now everyone can see it for themselves by conducting a search for vacation ideas.

If you do not see it, I have posted a screen capture below of the before and after.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:15 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2006

In The Election Results Race, Yahoo's The Winner

Like many Americans, I wanted to know what was up with the vote in the US midterm elections this morning. As a search analyst, I then wanted to know how the search engines performed in helping me find out. The results are in! Yahoo's the winner by far, but I'd still take the New York Times over it. Come along for an illustrated tour.

Google told us last month that Google Earth was all geared up to be an election guide. That's great if you've downloaded Google Earth and wanted to learn more before the election. But how about a quick, fast summary of what happened yesterday? What's Google got for us?

The Google home page is as minimal as always, no help there -- not even a special logo as in the 2004 race.

How about a search for "election results," which I think is a fair query to try. After all, using Google Trends, I can see a huge spike for that term after the last elections in the US:

I also checked the volume for just "results," and that was even higher whereas "elections" was much lower (see them all compared here). So my two queries for this test were "election results" and "results." On Google, both disappointed.

Here are election results on Google:

CNN's top with 2004 results! I know -- web search is always behind the times. That's why Google inserts that big news results OneBox unit above the regular results. Let's click on the main news link there, which takes us to news results:

Pretty bad. News about the dollar, stock prices -- but who won?!!! I've got to really work to figure this out, especially compared to the New York Times, as I'll show at the end of this story.

Maybe I head to the actual Google News home page:

Nope. I get some headlines telling me about the Democratic house victory, but it could be much better.

FYI, checking on a search for just results, I don't even get the news headlines inserted. Overall, I found Google to be a pretty poor resource.

How about Yahoo? The home page there immediately gives you some news:

If I actually gravitate to the picture and resist the pull of the search box, the "Full elections coverage" link takes me to a Full Coverage page with lots of info, including an interactive results page (my link takes that out of the normal pop-up box, but it still works great):

This is very, very nice. I can see at a glance who is ahead in the race for control of the US House Of Representatives, plus with a click I can check out the Senate or governor races. Selecting any state also gives me the information about races with that state.

I love this. It very similar to what impressed me at the New York Times. I hope Yahoo searchers found it. However, I suspect many bypassed it. To understand why, let's do that search for election results:

Similar to Google, Yahoo inserts a big "News Results" shortcut unit above the regular results, to help detour searchers into the freshest results. Of course, searcers might bypass that. If so, unlike Google, Yahoo has managed to get the CNN 2006 results page up rather than the CNN 2004 page. Nice. After that, there's Fox News 2006. But c'mon -- Yahoo's own special election results are third. This is one case where I'd totally applaud a little hand manipulation to get that to the top, especially to highlight that interactive results summary page.

Still, the web search results for this particular day at Yahoo far outshine Google. That's almost certainly due to some human editing, which is fine. Along with the sites I've mentioned, you get the New York Times politics page, USA Today's politics page, C-SPAN's 2006 results page, the ABC News politics page, CBS News's 2006 page, politics from the LA Times, then the Washington Post's 2006 results page. All of these are excellent choices. If Yahoo did human intervention to make this happen, kudos to them. You can check out a snapshot of the entire page here.

Over at Google, nothing is either timely or general enough. The Virginia state election board, California election info, assorted things dating from 2004 -- then oddly Virginia and California get another bump for their 2006 pages. Ugh. See the entire list in the snapshot here.

What happens if we detour into the news area that Yahoo promotes at the top of the page? Disappointment:

Yes, relevant news stories. And the image results to the side are kind of fun. But some hand help could have made a difference. How about a promo for that awesome election map of Yahoo's?

Let's go over to Ask, where I had high hopes. Ask has made a big deal of its special Smart Answers for the election, and they are cool. But will I see them? Yes, if I search for election:

I'd also get to this box if I went to the Ask home page and clicked on the Election Day link there:

But for election results (what I believe to be the more popular query), all I get is a small news unit:

The news unit will take me over to some news results, but like Yahoo's, these aren't thrilling. It's pick and choose through what you want, rather than any type of easy overview. As for a search on just results, that doesn't even bring back the news unit at all.

The overall web search results, similar to Google, are underwhelming. Nothing really helpful for the 2006 results pops up (see the full results in the snapshot here).

Even the special Smart Answers box, had it shown up, isn't that helpful for what I want now -- RESULTS! None of the featured links with it takes me to results.

Microsoft, what have you got for me at Windows Live Search? On the home page, nothing. For search on election results, it's disappointing old or non-targeted results (screenshot here). Unlike the others, there are no news results inserted above these. A search for just results is no better. If I specifically try a news search for election results, as with the others, there's no attempt to get me a comprehensive overview. It's up to me to review each story and hope for a good match.

Ironically, at the largely overshadowed MSN site, similar to Yahoo, I get a big election photo on the home page along with links, including one called "state-by-state results" that leads to MSNBC here. And over there is a pretty neat "Democracy Dashboard" giving me that type of overview I wanted:

It's a pity Windows Live didn't reach out to either MSN or MSNBC and do something special to point to this or somehow integrate it into the results.

What about AOL? From the home page, it's pretty easy to spot a link to a AOL election page with results for the House, Senate and more:

Searching for election results brings back disappointing Google listings in the main results. However, the new FullView column does a good job of dividing news into elections overall, US Senate coverage, US House coverage and more. And clicking on any of the "View all" links brings up the special AOL election page (see the full page here).

Now to the New York Times. I headed over there pretty much by chance. There are any number of newspapers I might of thought of off the top of my head, and usually its my original home town paper of the Los Angeles Times. But I hit the NY Times today, and boy was I glad.

Right on the home page, above the "fold" is an easy-to-spot election map. In seconds, it organized the most important information I was looking for into a way for me to know what was going on:

Drilling into the full map was even better. There, I could click on any state -- in particular the undecided ones -- and see the current situation:

Just when I was thinking "what if," I saw the "Create Outcomes" tab where I could click on a state and flip it to the Democrats or the Republicans to see how it might go with the Senate. Outstanding!

Other newspapers or web sites might have done as well with similar displays. If so, my apologies that this wasn't a review of the best election results sites. Instead, it was really meant to see how well the search engines held up as information resources for this particular news event.

Overall, I've written many times before that there's a role humans can play in search results. Today -- this was a perfect example of that. Yahoo almost certainly put some human effort into crafting results, and it was the clear victor in terms of quality of what was coming up in web search listings. AOL comes in second, again where human effort has helped its FullView listings help make up for the poor crawler-based results from Google.

In third, I put Google and Ask. Google's results were poor, but at least it floated some news results that may have helped. Ask, I was rooting for. But that Smart Answers box simply wasn't showing up for the queries I thought people were doing. Even if people were getting it for "election," it wasn't helpful to get election results. I really appreciate the effort, and if this had been for something other than actual results, Ask would have been great. In last place -- Windows Live.

This campaign of sorts is also one of those classic "what if" races. With just a little more effort, Yahoo would have had a landslide victory by getting people to its great overview page. The same is true for AOL. Ask, with just a bit more thought, could have had that box coming up for "election results" rather than just "elections" and added some links to get people to actual results. Windows Live, if it had remembered its MSN origins, might not be in last. And Google? A company that's all about organizing information might not have put in such a poor performance if it used some human power in the way the New York Times did.

Postscript: See also Case Study: Digg Versus Google News Traffic from me on my personal blog that covers how this article ultimately brought in lots of traffic from Google News from those unable to find election results there, along with lots of other data and a comparison to traffic from a top story at Digg on the same day.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:17 AM | Permalink

November 3, 2006

Yahoo Asking Users To Rate Usefulness Of Search Results

SEOdisco has screen captures of Yahoo asking him to rate how useful he finds the first two organic results for his search query. He is asked to rate it on a scale from one to five, one being "not useful" and five being "very useful". This is not the first time we have seen Yahoo ask people to rate search results, I reported it back in July of this year. In addition, we know Google occasionally asks users to rate the AdWords results.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:38 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2006

Yahoo Slurp Adds Wildcard Support For Robots.txt

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that Yahoo's web crawler, aka Yahoo Slurp, now supports wildcards in the robots.txt file. The two parameters that Yahoo now supports include the "*" and the "$." The * will tell Yahoo to do a "wildcard match a sequence of characters in your URL." The & will tell Yahoo to do a "anchor the match to the end of the URL string." Many more details at the Yahoo Search Blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 4:04 PM | Permalink

October 26, 2006

Yahoo To Add No Yahoo Directory Tag

Rejoice! I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Yahoo! is to add no yahoo directory tag support soon. Yesterday Yahoo added support for the NOODP tag, and based on a WebmasterWorld thread, requesting Yahoo to also support a tag to prevent the Yahoo Directory title and description from showing, Tim Mayer of Yahoo said, they are working on it. He also asked for our input on if they should make "a different tag or should the NOODP tag apply to both YDIR and ODP?"

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:22 AM | Permalink

October 25, 2006

Yahoo Adds NOODP Support & Weather Report Update

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that Yahoo has finally added support for the NOODP META tag. You can deploy this two ways;

META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP" (stops MSN, Google and Yahoo from using ODP directory) or META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOODP (stops just Yahoo from using ODP directory)

I reported back on October 11th that this was coming and Danny explains why NOODP tag support is not enough, we need it to support a method to tell Yahoo not to use the Yahoo Directory title and description as well.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:37 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

Yahoo Hurting While Google Healthier Than Ever

The NY Times has an article named Yahoo's Growth Being Eroded by New Rivals (free version available at (IHT.com). The article goes through how Yahoo is suffering and lagging behind its competitors. (1) They made a bid at YouTube but those deals broke down, according to the article, and Google "swooped" them up. (2) The new Yahoo search ad system, Panama, is over a year delayed. This "delay has sucked up the company's engineering resources and prevented it from developing new advertising products."

Based on my coverage of Yahoo over the past year, it seems like webmasters, SEOs, and industry folks have become less and less interested with the company.

The LA Times has an article this morning that goes on the same theme. If you can't get to the article, try going through Google News to gain free access, it worked for me.

Postscript From Greg Sterling:

This is not the kind of publicity you want to see if you're on the PR team. While it's true that Google has momentum and Yahoo may need a kind of "shot in the arm," what people forget is that Yahoo is the largest site on the Internet with the most monthly uniques.

It also has a bunch of market-leading properties including mail, finance and local (among others). Mail is also the number one mobile site.

Google, though a very dynamic and powerful company with lots of momentum, is not without its challenges and vulnerabilities. If anything the YouTube acquisition was an admission of some of those. Though, by the same token, Google now has great opportunity with YouTube.

I'm not sure, from where I sit, how many problems identified in the Saul Hansell Times piece are real and how many are simply perceived. But perception does influence reality.

Yahoo is a little like a strong sports team that happens to be in a bit of a slump right now.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:40 AM | Permalink

Weather Reports: Yahoo Search Update & Google Status Report

We received two search "weather reports" last night, the first from the Yahoo Search Blog that announced that an "index update" that has begun rolling out last night. The other from Matt Cutts blog that informed us of Google's "update on search quality/infrastructure on Google going into the fall."

Yahoo told us to expect "some changes in ranking along with shuffling of the pages that are included in the index" but based on my tracking of the search forums, either there is not enough shuffling or Yahoo isn't sending enough traffic these days for SEOs to care about it. So keep an eye out for that.

Matt Cutts basically gave a summary of what happened since his last Google weather report and what to expect in the short-term future. He mentioned Big Daddy, their crawl caching proxy, the new supplemental index, the site: command update, and much more. He also posted on smaller issues later in the night on, as a continuation to his weather report.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:25 AM | Permalink

Yahoo To Support The NOODP Tag; Won't Prevent Display Of Yahoo Directory Title

Last night, I spoke with Tim Mayer of Yahoo about supporting the NOODP tag at Yahoo. In short, the NOODP tag allows webmasters to tell the search engine not to use the ODP's title in the web search results. MSN was the first to implement the standard, and then Google followed. Tim Mayer said that Yahoo will be supporting the NOODP tag starting next week or the week after. But the tag will not prevent the Yahoo Directory title from displaying in the Yahoo search results.

Tim Mayer explained that Yahoo uses an algorithm to figure out when to use the title provided by (a) the webmaster, (b) the ODP directory or (c) Yahoo Directory. He said that since the NOODP is a standard already, they will add support for it. But they did not want to create a new meta tag to exclude the Yahoo Directory, because they use algorithms to best determine when to use which title. He said it doesn't mean they will not create a new tag in the future, but the NOODP tag that will be released next week will only prevent the ODP title/description from displaying.

Danny and I feel that the NOODP tag should not just tell Yahoo to not display the ODP title but also be used to tell Yahoo to not use the Yahoo Directory title. Danny clearly showed me how Yahoo's algorithms to determine when to use what title is not working a 100%.

A search on tony knowles shows the same thing it did back when he wrote; "you'll see that tonyknowles.com is given a description by Yahoo about his senate attempt. That was correct at the time, but since then, Knowles has changed the web site over for his gubernatorial attempt."

So something needs to be done here as well.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:28 AM | Permalink

September 8, 2006

Google's Title & Description Hijacked In Yahoo Results Due To Glitch

I reported at the Roundtable that Yahoo! Shows Different Site's Title & Description For Google.com. Apparently, this is visible in the US, and if you conduct search on [google] at Yahoo Search you may notice that the top result for www.google.com has the title, "Elisha Morgan Gemologists." That title comes from a site listed in the Yahoo Directory, that happens to 302 redirect to google.com. So now, Yahoo lists that site's title and description for Google.com. Go figure?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 7:49 AM | Permalink

August 25, 2006

Google, Yahoo, & MSN Update Search Results

It appears that all the major search engines have been reported to be updating their indexes in some way. Google is updating back links at some of the Google data centers. Yahoo has been recently reported to have updated its algorithm or index, although there is no official word from Yahoo on this as of yet. And MSN Search has confirmed that an update has occurred to their index recently. While Google's update may not be represented in the index, Yahoo and MSN's updates have reports that the search results have indeed changed. For the better or worse - that is in the eyes of the beholder.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:52 AM | Permalink

August 1, 2006

New Search Patent Applications: August 1, 2006 - Microsoft Answers?

There are a number of new patent applications from Yahoo, including one that utilizes concept networks to understand the intention behind a user's query; another describing an addition to a user interface that lets a searcher define the context of a search; an API approach to retrieve information from fast changing dynamic sites such as job listing sites, news site personals, or online auction sites; a way to use the contents of a first set of results from the search engine to find relevant pages from a second set of results, including both paid and organic results; a process of dynamically modifying the layout of a page so that the most important content is likely to be seen by a visitor; and a remote filtering system for filtering spam for client-based email programs.

Microsoft unveils a patent application that could be the inspiration for Windows Live QnA, a process for removing unlinked documents from a search engine's index, an approach for presenting relevant snippets with search results, a means of using cached search results for queries with relevant advertising results, and a query refinement process based upon past user behavior.

IBM provides a linguistic approach to identifying the main body text of a page, and they present that approach as an improvement upon methods such as a VIPS or a Visual Gap Segmentation process.

Yahoo

Systems and methods for managing and using multiple concept networks for assisted search processing Inventors: Shyam Kapur, Jignashu Parikh, and Deepa Joshi Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060167896 Published July 27, 2006 Filed on December 5, 2005

Abstract

Multiple concept networks are generated from subsets of received queries. These concept networks can be used in various ways to enhance response to subsequent queries. In one embodiment, concept networks can be merged into a larger concept network that can be used to infer a user's likely intent given a query. In another embodiment, suggestions for related searches obtained using different concept networks can be merged or aggregated. Other users for concept networks in query processing, including assisted search, are also described.

Systems and methods for contextual transaction proposals Inventors: Reiner Kraft, Andreas Hartmann, Farzin Maghoul Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060167857 Published July 27, 2006 Filed on May 12, 2005

Abstract

Context-specific transaction proposals are automatically generated and presented to a user who expresses interest in a particular topic. A user viewing a World Wide Web page or other content item activates an interface to indicate that he or she is interested in additional information related to the subject of the page. A context vector or other representation of the content of the page being viewed is transmitted to an information server, which identifies possible transactions related to the content and proposes one or more of these transactions to the user. Transaction proposals can be presented together with a contextual search interface that allows the user to submit zero or more search terms together with the context vector as a search query.

System and method for improving online search engine results

Inventors: Daniel Patrick Dissett, Arkady Borkovsky, Charles Converse Carson, JR. Assigned to Yahoo! Inc. US Patent Application 20060167852 Published July 27, 2006 Filed on January 28, 2005

July 28, 2006

Yahoo Launches New Slurp Crawler

The Yahoo Search blog announced the launch of a new crawler (aka Yahoo Slurp) that is faster and more efficient then then its previous robotic arm. This crawler is still named Slurp, but it crawls faster and uses up less bandwidth. Yahoo says we can expect a "25% reduction in the number of requests and bandwidth consumed by the crawler."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:59 PM | Permalink

July 14, 2006

Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search Update

Yahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.

On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index."

Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:44 PM | Permalink

June 20, 2006

It's Not Just Google With Disappointing Results

We have been poking hard at Google for disappointing search results, but Google is not the only search engine that has been disappointing me recently. You can group Yahoo and MSN and even Ask.com into the search engines that I have been disappointed with.

Over at the Search Engine Roundtable, I cover what I call "forum buzz," the discussions taking place within the SEM/SEO community. I tend to pick up on algorithm shifts and post the details at my site.

Today, I covered two threads, one I named Yahoo! Also Easy To Spam and the other MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites. But what really got me was Danny's postscript on Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly Visible showing Yahoo has a similar issue.

Typically, I have always had a search engine to fall back on when one wasn't "doing it for me." Today, I don't have that search engine. Google pushed me over the edge with the Sub Sub Domain Issues. Yahoo is easy to spam with comment spam (ummm, nofollow not working?), and MSN is being laughed at, IMO. Ask.com, they are good, but way too slow to update at this point.

To make it even worse, Google still refuses to take a stand on the whole cloaking debate. Just take a look at the back and forth in our Search Engine Watch Forums thread!

So where does that leave me? Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are all disappointing right now. Tomorrow? Well, I can always hope for a better tomorrow. Who knows, maybe a new Google will come along? Maybe AltaVista will rise up again?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:25 AM | Permalink

Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly Visible

Threadwatch reveals some more examples of issues Google is having. They note a search on queer forum returns CraigsList 97 times out of the top 100 results. That is not all, a search on wedding forum returns about 50 of 100 results from CraigsList's site, just scroll down to number 50 and you will see.

Is CraigsList spamming? No! Is Google suffering? :) Google is clearly having issues with sub sub domains. Continued coverage of Google's public index issues.

Postscript From Danny: Comments at Threadwatch also note Yahoo has the same issue. MSN does not as badly (but that could be the result of spidering fewer pages) and Ask looks very good.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:19 AM | Permalink

June 15, 2006

Yahoo Asks Web Searchers How Clean Are The Search Results

Gary Price captured a screen shot of Yahoo polling search users on how clean the Yahoo search results page looks. The question asked is "How clean and uncluttered do you find this page?" With a five point scale, 1 being cluttered and 5 being clean. View the full screen capture by clicking here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:18 PM | Permalink

MSN's Hand Crafted Results (Fake? - Shame On Me!)

"MSN Hiring People to Hand Code SERPS" at SEO Blackhat is a nice catch from the MSN Search jobs page talking about needing people to help hand-craft results. Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped reacts with "Oh my." I react with "Hallelujah."

Note: As Threadwatch spots in comments, this page looks like a joke that MSN is hosting. Shame on me for not reading more closely -- type 150 words per minute! The page IS on the real MSN Search domain, but it's not linked from the real jobs area [OK, Pip at Google Blogoscoped found it connected from the jobs page]. Anyway, I'll drop a note and get confirmation. And the points below -- still valid :)

Let's look at the job post first:

When all else fails, and the ranking algorithms do not pass the confidence threshold, we fall back to delivering handcrafted results. Working on a team of approximately 132 other handcrafters in 26 worldwide markets, you will receive a user query, use all the available search engines to quickly scour the web for results, pick the top 10 results for this query, and send it on to the user. Successful handcrafters can typically find top 10 results for a real-time user?s query in less than 3.8 seconds. This is an opportunity to truly connect with customers, because the queries that get routed to you are precisely the ones that the engine cannot answer well. We will have adequate staffing to allow generous coffee and bathroom breaks. If you are an expert at using at least 3 different search engines, well versed with American English/colloquial usage, and can type at > 149 words/minute as measured by the Simia-Lico method ? come join us and delight users real-time!

I agree. Search engine algorithms are not perfect. I'm tired of seeing bad listings make it into the top results that any human reviewer would nix. The Google mantra has always been that they prefer to tailor their computer algorithms to figure out how a human would see and rate things and then get the algorithm to do the right thing. We've had that mantra for years. And yes, generally the algorithms do the right things. Still stuff gets through. So kill off the bad stuff with a human and sure, insert a good quality page you know you are missing.

As a reminder, MSN used to have human editors, as I've written before. That was actually one reason why years ago, they compared pretty well when we would do relevancy tests on popular queries. They had a very sophisticated editing suite that allowed a team of editors to constantly review -- AND FIX -- bad results.

Now I can buy into the "Oh My" idea if MSN is returning to hand crafted results because their automated technology is so bad they've got to fall back on humans. No, that's not good. But if it's to complement and better tune what the automation does? Bring it on. If you want more on the how and why this can help, see my past post, More On Query Refinement, The Human Scale Problem & Creating The Search Dialog.

I also have the "Oh My" reaction if hand handcrafting involves payment. This year, I've had one serious allegation that MSN has rigged one set of its results to favor a top advertiser. I just had another serious allegation like that levied against Yahoo. In the MSN case, the difficulty in pursuing the allegation is deciding whether they are true or an attempt to knock out a competitor that might be ranking well. In the Yahoo case, I'm awaiting that tipster to send me more information beyond the quick eye opening stuff I was shown at our recent London conference.

Yahoo, of course, does hand manipulate already, to my belief (I'm not saying for payment -- only that for whatever reason, they seem to hand craft some results). I wrote about this in 2004 but never got an answer about it from Yahoo, nor did I get an answer when I followed up at least one other time. It also came up on our forums last year and at here at Search Engine Roundtable.

Google has long denied "hand jobs," as wizened search marketers call them. Setting aside censorship cases, I believe that. I've never seen any solid evidence of results being hand selected by Google (and the quality raters we're written about before have not been shown to be manipulating results).

In fact, Google used to trumpet that it had no hand manipulation. That was true in crafting results, but it wasn't true in terms of removing them. As I wrote in 2004:

Of course, Google does indeed intervene manually in search results. It removes material because it may be deemed illegal, as was the case in the infamous chester guide search. The company also removes material in response to DMCA complaints and also because for spamming reasons, as this article explains further.

Such interventions make some marketers confused (or even livid) when they read Google's oft-repeated claims of no hand manipulation of search results. To them, such removals as I've described above are hand manipulation. You can get a flavor of such confusion in this recent WebmasterWorld forum thread.

These interventions are not specifically rank related. When they happen, Google doesn't try to reorder the ranking of how a page appears. Instead, it simply pulls the page from the index entirely. And if you aren't in the index, you naturally no longer rank number one. But to save confusion, it might be better for Google to be clearer in saying that they don't chose by hand which sites rank well.

By the way, I asked Google previously about the reference in a Wired article about wanting to "attach" better sites to queries to ensure it had good information available. I remember being disturbed by this, just as some in the aforementioned thread were, as it indeed suggested that Google was doing hand-ranking in some cases.

I was told by Google that this was a misinterpretation on the part of Wired. The Google engineer apparently meant that the Google search algorithm would be tweaked to produce better results, not that the results would be reordered by hand.

Overall, I'm fine with hand-crafting, hand manipulation, hand jobs or whatever you want to call it as long as:

It improves search quality
It's not done to favor an advertiser by rigging the editorial results

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:16 AM | Permalink

June 12, 2006

New Search Patents: June 12, 2006 - More Yahoo Concepts and Google Predictive Searches

Microsoft describes the use of block level analysis to improve mobile browsing, writes of allowing searchers to customize search results, presents a query refinement system which provides concepts for users to choose from, and offers a look at a video browser for video search. IBM has filed a patent which could let a browser be used to exclude selected pages, and pages linked to or from those pages, from search engine results. In another filing, they detail how a focused random crawl could be used to gather statistical information on chosen topics.

Google further builds upon the use of predictive queries, in this instance to speed up searches, especially for people using wireless access to the web. Yahoo adds two more patent applications which use concept units derived from searchers' queries to index the web. In this case, the focus is upon how taxonomies could be created from those concepts.

Microsoft

Microsoft's Vision based Page Segmentation Algorithm (VIPS) was intended "to extract the semantic structure of a web page based on its visual presentation." We saw an example of how this could be used in a paper by Microsoft titled Block-level Link Analysis, where the location of a link on a page might tell us more about that link. The following patent uses VIPs to decide what to show searchers, when displaying a thumbnail of a result from a search.

Block importance analysis to enhance browsing of web page search results Invented by Xing Xie, Wei-Ying Ma, and Gengxin Miao Assigned to Micrsoft Corporation US Patent Application 20060123042 Publised June 8, 2006 Filed December 7, 2004

Abstract

Systems and methods for block importance analysis to enhance browsing of web page search results are described. In one aspect, a server analyzes content of a document as a function of multiple block importance criteria. The server assigns a respective block importance level of multiple importance levels to respective block(s) of the analyzed content. The server generates one or more customized documents from block(s) of the content as a function of respective assigned block importance level(s) of the block(s). Each of the one or more customized documents is generated in a particular format of multiple formats to enhance user interaction with the document on a small form factor computing device.

How much control should a searcher have over what type of information appears on a search results page from a search engine? There really isn't much choice provided by the major search engines as to what searchers see. This patent application explores some options.

System and method for customization of search results Invented by Ramez Naam Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060122968 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 2, 2004

Abstract

A system and method are provided for customizing search result descriptions for results returned by a search engine. The search result descriptions may be obtained through a search over a computer network. The system includes a search result description request component for enabling selection of particular data for retrieval by the search engine. The system additionally includes a search result description generator for retrieving and returning the requested data. The system also includes a search result description renderer for displaying search result descriptions in a selected manner.

System and method for query refinement to enable improved searching based on identifying and utilizing popular concepts related to users' queries Invented by Raman Chandrasekar, James C. Finger, II, and Eric B. Watson Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060122991 Published June 8, 2006 Filed January 26, 2006

Abstract

Refining a user query is disclosed. In one method, a query is received from a user, and then mapped to one or more search concepts. A list of search concepts associated with the query is then displayed. Alternatively or additionally, the search concepts associated with the query are used to provide a set of improved search results. In another method, a number of queries from a number of users are analyzed to identify two or more search concepts, and a popularity value is assigned to them based on the queries. Thus, the relative popularity of the respective search concepts can be determined. Alternatively or additionally, a preferred search query for the search concepts can be determined. The popularity and preferred queries can be used to allow automatic or user-initiated refinement.

System and method for video browsing using a cluster index Invented by Nebojsa Jojic and Sumit Basu Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060120624 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 8, 2004

Abstract

A "Video Browser" provides an intuitive user interface for indexing, and interactive visual browsing, of particular elements within a video recording. In general, the Video Browser operates by first generating a set of one or more mosaic images from the video recording. In one embodiment, these mosaics are further clustered using an adjustable similarity threshold. User selection of a particular video mosaic then initiates a playback of corresponding video frames. However, in contrast to conventional mosaicing schemes which simply play back the set of frames used to construct the mosaic, the Video Browser provides a playback of only those individual frames within which a particular point selected within the image mosaic was observed. Consequently, user selection of a point in one of the image mosaics serves to provide a targeted playback of only those frames of interest, rather than playing back the entire image sequence used to generate the mosaic.

IBM

Want to exclude certain pages or pages linked to or from that page from search results that you see in a search engine? The method described in the following document would enable a browser to help make that happen.

Administration of search results Invented by Susann Marie Keohane, Gerald Francis McBrearty, Shawn Patrick Mullen, Jessica Murillo, and Johnny Meng-Han Shieh Assigned to IBM US Patent Application 20060122972 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 2, 2004

Abstract

Administration of search results including displaying by a browser a set of search results from a web search, each search result containing a link to a web page; selecting a search result for exclusion from display, thereby identifying a selected search result, including selecting for exclusion from display search results containing related links, wherein related links include links related to the link in the selected search result; and displaying the search results without the selected search result and without the search results containing related links.

Gathering information on a specific topic throughout the web could be helpful in many endeavors, including intelligence gathering and marketing research. A focused random crawl on a specific topic could gather information more quickly and inexpensively than a full crawl of the web.

System, method, and service for using a focused random walk to produce samples on a topic from a collection of hyper-linked pages Invented by Ziv Bar-Yossef, Tapas Kanungo, and Robert Krauthgamer Assigned to IBM US Patent Application 20060122998 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 4, 2004

Abstract

A focused random walk system produces samples of on-topic pages from a collection of hyper-linked pages such as Web pages. The focused random walk system utilizes a focused random walk to produce a focused sample, which is a random sample of Web pages focused on a topic. The focused random walk system uniformly samples pages iteratively, where each iteration follows a random link from a union of the in-links and out-links of a page. The system then classifies this randomly selected link to determine whether the page is on-topic. The random walk sampling process could comprise a hard-focus method that selects only on-topic pages at each step of the focused random walk, or a soft-focus method that allows limited divergence to off-topic pages.

Google

In recent months, Google has had patent applications published on the use of predictive queries in the context of making it easier to work with mobile devices, in applications like Google Suggest, and in a version of Google Suggest system for languages that don't use alphabetical characters. This next patent application talks about predictive queries primarily in the context of increasing the speed of returned results.

Predictive information retrieval Invented by Shumeet Baluja and Henry Rowley US Patent Application 20060122976 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 3, 2004

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for generating results for a client-requested query involves receiving a query produced by a client communication device, generating a result for the query in response to reception of the query, determining one or more predictive follow-up requests before receiving an actual follow-up request from the client device, and initiating retrieval of information associated with the one or more predictive follow-up requests, and transmitting at least part of the result to the client device, and then transmitting to the client device at least part of the information associated with the one or more predictive follow-up requests.

Yahoo

Yahoo is building a nice series of patents involving indexing on the basis of concept units. Last month, we looked at a newly granted patent from Yahoo involving the generation of concept units from search queries. As noted there, the patent is one of three filings that use the unit concept to help understand and index pages. A couple of newly published patent applications from Yahoo build upon the methods described in those documents to categorize concepts and build taxonomies of concepts.

Automatic generation of taxonomies for categorizing queries and search query processing using taxonomies Invented by Shyam Kapur, Jignashu Parikh, and Deepa Joshi Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060122994 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 6, 2004

Abstract

Systems and methods for processing search requests are provided, including automatic generation of taxonomies and query processing using those taxonomies.

Search processing with automatic categorization of queries Invented by Shyam Kapur, Jignashu Parikh, and Deepa Joshi Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060122979 Published June 8, 2006 Filed December 6, 2004

Abstract

Search results are processed using search requests, including analyzing received queries in order to provide a more sophisticated understanding of the information being sought. A concept network is generated from a set of queries by parsing the queries into units and defining various relationships between the units. From these concept networks, queries can be automatically categorized into categories, or more generally, can be associated with one or more nodes of a taxonomy. The categorization can be used to alter the search results or the presentation of the results to the user. As an example of alterations of search results or presentation, the presentation might include a list of "suggestions" for related search query terms. As other examples, the corpus searched might vary depending on the category or the ordering or selection of the results to present to the user might vary depending on the category. Categorization might be done using a learned set of query-node pairs where a pair maps a particular query to a particular node in the taxonomy. The learned set might be initialized from a manual indication of which queries go with which nodes and enhanced has more searches are performed. One method of enhancement involves tracking post-query click activity to identify how a category estimate of a query might have varied from an actual category for the query as evidenced by the category of the post-query click activity, e.g., a particular hits of the search results that the user selected following the query. Another method involved determining relationships between units in the form of clusters and using clustering to modify the query-node pairs.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 12:47 AM | Permalink

June 5, 2006

How To Contact Yahoo Search

Last week, Yahoo posted helpful contact information at the Yahoo Search blog. Yahoo has a new contact form that can be accessed at http://help.yahoo.com/search/feedback and completed to submit feedback and questions to Yahoo. In addition, Yahoo improved the Yahoo Search Help section and also posted a useful Webmaster Resources section.

The Webmaster Resources section has links to the Yahoo Search Blog, the Search help page, "Search Content Guidelines", spam report page, search feedback form, site explorer, submit url form and more.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:45 AM | Permalink

May 25, 2006

New Search Patents: May 25, 2006 - Yahoo Units and Microsoft Redundancy Filters

New patents from this week from Yahoo on indexing by concepts and on uses of scripts on different computers to share data between them. Microsoft looks at reranking search results based upon redundancy, annotations on web pages, and showing web ads based upon a person's television viewing habits. IBM comes up with smarter bookmarks, and Amazon shows smarter search results when a first query doesn't quite work.

Yahoo

This first patent from Yahoo is part of a trilogy of related patent filings. The other two haven't been granted yet:

Systems and methods for search processing using superunits

Universal search interface systems and methods

It's interesting to see how these three fit together into a search system. Co-occurrence seems to play a large role under this system.

Systems and methods for generating concept units from search queries Inventors: Shyam Kapur and Deepa Joshi US Patent 7,051,023 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: November 12, 2003

Abstract

Systems and method for enhancing search functionality provided to a user. In certain aspects, a query processing engine automatically decomposes queries into constituent units that are related to concepts in which a user may be interested. The query processing engine decomposes queries into one or more constituent units per query using statistical methods. In certain aspects, no real world knowledge is used in determining units. In other aspects, aspects of world and content knowledge are introduced to enhance and optimize performance, for example, manually using a team of one or more information engineers.

Method and system for enabling a script on a first computer to communicate and exchange data with a script on a second computer over a network Inventors: Thomas Joshua Shafron and Christopher Staib US Patent 7,051,119 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: July 12, 2001

Abstract

A method and system for enabling a script on a first computer to communicate and exchange data with a script on a second computer so as to provide access by the script to data typically inaccessible by a script. The method and system enable a first computer to control the Internet navigation of a second computer, and also enable instant messaging between a first computer and a member of a synchronization group. The computers may be connectable with each other over any type of network (e.g., LAN, WAN, intranet, Internet, cellular, tc.).

Microsoft

This first patent aims at identifying and filtering documents that contain roughly the same information, and identifying and filtering off-topic information, in search results.

Utilizing information redundancy to improve text searches Inventors: Eric D. Brill and Susan T. Dumais US Patent 7,051,014 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: June 18, 2003

Abstract

Architecture for improving text searches using information redundancy. A search component is coupled with an analysis component to rerank documents returned in a search according to a redundancy values. Each returned document is used to develop a corresponding word probability distribution that is further used to rerank the returned documents according to the associated redundancy values. In another aspect thereof, the query component is coupled with a projection component to project answer redundancy from one document search to another. This includes obtaining the benefit of considerable answer redundancy from a second data source by projecting the success of the search of the second data source against a first data source.

Scalable computing system for managing annotations Inventors: Scott C. Cottrille, Yoram Yaacovi, and Antony Halim US Patent 7,051,274 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: June 24, 1999

Abstract

A scalable computing system for managing annotations is capable of handling requests for annotations to millions of documents a day. The computing system consists of multiple tiers of servers. A tier I server indicates whether there are annotations associated with a content source. A tier II server indexes the annotations. A tier III server stores the body of the annotation.

System and method of inserting advertisements into an information retrieval system display Inventors: Phillip Y. Goldman, Michael A. Killianey, and Daniel J. Zigmond; US Patent 7,051,351 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: March 8, 1999

Abstract

Systems and methods for selecting and inserting advertisements in an information document displayed to a user, wherein the selection is based at least in part on television programming viewed by the user. The systems and methods may be implemented using the Internet or another information retrieval system that includes a client system and a remote server. The client system monitors television programming viewed by the user and compiles a user profile characterizing the television programming. When the user requests an Internet resource using the client system, the television programming information in the user profile is utilized to select an appropriate advertisement. The advertisement is then inserted in the information document and displayed to the user. Advertisement selection and insertion may be conducted at the remote server, the client system, or at the level of the Internet service provider. Such selection of advertisement increases the efficiency by which Internet advertisements are tailored to individuals. Instead of advertisements, information relating to the television programming may be retrieved over the Internet and displayed without direct user assistance.

IBM

Smart bookmarks Inventors: Jason R. McGee, Christopher C. Mitchell, Michael John Morton, and Brent A. Peters US Patent 7,051,117 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: July 25, 2002

Abstract

A smart bookmark article of manufacture can include both a network address pointing to the network location of content specifying a form; and, one or more field references, each field reference corresponding to fields specified in the form. The smart bookmark article of manufacture also can include at least one field attribute corresponding to at least one of the field references.

Amazon

When someone performs a search, there are sometimes no results that satisfy that query. This can happen when the query terms are very detailed and narrow, or when one of the terms in the query is misspelled or misremembered. Instead of frustrating the searcher by not returning any responses at all, search engines will often display results based upon some of the terms that were in the query, instead of all of them.

The following patent notes that a common approach to displaying these results with less than all of the terms is to arbitrarily remove some of the terms from the query, until a number of results are returned. The aim of the process in this document is to provide a more effective technique for displaying items relating to some of the terms in the query.

Identifying items relevant to a current query based on items accessed in connection with similar queries Inventors: Dwayne Bowman, Greg Linden, Ruben E. Ortega, and Joel R. Spiegel US Patent 7,050,992 Granted May 23, 2006 Filed: June 25, 1999

Abstract

The present invention provides a software facility for identifying the items most relevant to a current query based on items selected in connection with similar queries. In preferred embodiments of the invention, the facility receives a query specifying one or more query terms. In response, the facility generates a query result identifying a plurality of items that satisfy the query. The facility then produces a ranking value for at least a portion of the item identified in the query result by combining the relative frequencies with which users selected that item from the query results generated from queries specifying each of the terms specified by the query. The facility identifies as most relevant those items having the highest ranking values.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 9:22 PM | Permalink

May 18, 2006

New Search Patents: May 18, 2006 - Yahoo's Active Abstracts are Calling

Some new patents and patent applications from the last week cover a wide range of search related topics. On Tuesday, I wrote about some possible enhancements to Ask's Binoculars. Yahoo seems to be looking at providing more information on search results pages with smarter snippets, or what they call "active abstracts" that can lead to such things as refined queries or maps or can even allow you to place a phone call. Microsoft comes up with an intermediary query interface which could be used with more than one search engine. IBM and Hitachi both present different ways of looking at clustered results after a search. The dominant Korean search engine describes methods for selling keyword-based advertising. S.L.I. Systems presents a human powered search, which uses community to tell it when to update pages, and which keywords to associate with those pages.

Yahoo

The first patent application I have listed for Yahoo is under their name in the US Patent and Trademark assignment database. The second isn't there yet, but it shares two authors, and is on a very related topic. They both cover very similar ground.

When a snippet, or abstract, is returned with a search result, it may be helpful to include a link in the snippet which might lead to something the searcher would want to see based upon the initial query. The search engine would try to include relevant "terms of interest" in the abstract.

These "terms of interest" could be single words, or a string of words. Some examples:

Yahoo defined keywords and categories,

Names - proper names, business names, organization names, place names, etc.,

Uncommon words,

Product names,

Trademarks,

Service marks,

Titles - music titles, book titles, titles of television shows, etc.,

Street addresses,

Telephone numbers, and;

Others.

These are all words or phrases likely to be used in a secondary search for information. These are called "active" terms in that they may be tied to some different actions, such as being links leading to other pages, or to Yahoo's mapping server, or a dictionary lookup, or a "voice over IP" call for a phone number, and so on.

The second patent application builds upon these active abstracts by providing additional ways that they can be used and activated. This can include translation, showing links to the most popular pages of a site, leading to reviews of products or services offered on the page, or even some results based upon information that the search engine might know about the searcher.

Search system presenting active abstracts including linked terms Inventors: Chad Carson, and Douglas Michael Cook US Patent Application 20060101012 Published May 11, 2006 Filed: June 10, 2005

Abstract

Upon receiving a search query, a search to identify at least one resource relevant to the search query is performed. At least one excerpt is extracted from the at least one resource, and a term of interest is identified in the excerpt. A link to a referral document is associated with the term of interest. Upon selection of the link, the referral document is displayed. Alternatively, the link is associated with a second search query, and the second search query is automatically performed upon selection of the link. A network telephone call can be automatically placed when a telephone number is the term of interest.

Active abstracts Inventors: Chad Carson, Douglas M. Cook, and Kalpana Ravinarayanan US Patent Application 20060101003 Published May 11, 2006 Filed: June 28, 2005

Abstract

Techniques are provided for generating search results that include, instead of or in addition to the traditional abstract links, other links to content that the user of a search engine may consider helpful. These other links are referred to herein as "non-traditional abstract links". In general, the search engine generates non-traditional abstract links that attempt to anticipate the "next move" by the search engine user. By selecting a non-traditional abstract link from the abstract of a matching resource, the user is able to navigate from the search result listing directly to locations other than the top of a matching resource.

Microsoft

Microsoft's patent application focuses on providing more efficient searches, by first putting a query into a structured form before looking to a document index at a search engine or cache files logs on that search engine or the user's browser. This process can involve the use of more than one search engine.

Application programming interface for text mining and search Inventors: Eric Brill and Robert J. Ragno US Patent Application 20060101037 Published May 11, 2006 Filed July 1, 2005

Abstract

Systems and methods are described that allow programmatic access to search engine results and query logs in a structured form. The search results can be retrieved from the search engine in an intermediary form that contains the information that is in the HTML pages provided to web browsers (potentially with additional information). This intermediary form can then be broken down on the client machine, using local resources, to assemble the structured objects. The library also provides for caching of the search results. This can be provided both on the local machine and on a remote database. When the results for a query exist in the caches, they can be retrieved from such location instead of querying the search engine. Documents and/or web pages can also be cached. The library can also be directed to operate only from the cache, effectively exposing a local data set instead of the remote search engine.

IBM

Method for organizing a plurality of documents and apparatus for displaying a plurality of documents Inventors: Zhong Su, Li Zhang, Yue Pan, Li Bai, Li Ping Yang US Patent Application 20060101102 Published May 11, 2006 Filed November 7, 2005

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for organizing a plurality of documents and an apparatus for displaying a plurality of documents. Said plurality of documents are clustered, and the resulted clusters of different levels are displayed as virtual directories, thus helping the user to navigate to the target document quickly. The navigation may be performed with the aid of topics and abstracts. Furthermore, the user's operations may be reduced through controlling the displayed contents to be within the size of the screen.

Hitachi

With some clustering search engines, the categories created are displayed in a list of folders or a vitual directory that you can only drill deeper into one at a time. This patent shows the results of a search, in clusters, arranged on a grid so that users can see their relevance to the term or terms that were searched for. The images attached to the patent are pretty illustrative of how it would work.

Document information display system and method, and document search method Inventors: Osamu Imaichi, Tetsuo Nishikawa, Toru Hisamitsu, Makoto Iwayama, Masakazu Fujio US Patent 7,047,255 Granted May 16, 2006 Filed February 27, 2003

Abstract

The present invention visualizes the contents of a plurality of documents without a lack of the listing property. Two document units are extracted from a document database and relevance degrees between individual elements of a group of the document units are calculated. The results are displayed on a two-dimensional coordinate plane depending on the relevance degree.

NHN Corporation

The Korean search space tends to be strongly dominated by Korean search engines, as can be seen from an article in the Korea Times back in January, which discussed Why is Google Struggling in Korea. It points to the NHN Corporation's Naver as the dominant search engine. This patent application looks at some steps that may be taken by NHN Corporation involving advertising based upon keywords.

Method for generating a search result list on a web search engine Inventors: Joon Hong, Woo Sung US Patent Application 20060100988 Published May 11, 2006 Filed: February 27, 2004

Abstract

A Computer-readable recording medium in which a program for implementing a method according to any one of claims 1 to 12 is recorded. The present invention relates to a method for selling a search word to a network information provider and providing a search result list to a searcher based on the sales information if the searcher inputs the search word in an Internet search engine. The present invention includes maintaining a database for storing a plurality of search listings therein, each of the search listings including a search word and a network position associated with a network information provider, receiving the search request from the searcher, identifying a search listing having a search word corresponding to the search request, providing the identified search listing to the searcher as a search result list, if the searcher clicks a search listing of the search result list and accesses a network information provider's web page associated with the clicked search listing, receiving predetermined information on the use of the web page by the searcher, and charging the network information provider based on the received predetermined information on the use of the web page by the searcher. According to the present invention, there is provided an Internet search service method and apparatus for providing a variety of billing means to a network information provider by properly reflecting the profit made by the network information provider.

S.L.I. Systems, Inc

The intent behind this patent application is to create a unique search engine and "ameliorate the aforementioned disadvantages of conventional search engines by harnessing the cerebral power of the human operator." Pages selected in search results by users are the pages that get updated in search results. The more frequently a page is selected, the more frequently the information in the database about it gets updated. Users can also supply their own keywords to describe the content of a site, which can then be shared with others.

S.L.I. Systems is the founder and a co-owner of Eurekster, which Danny wrote about a couple of years ago in Eurekster Launches Personalized Social Search. This document appears to describe many of the features of Eurekster's swickis.

Search engine Inventors: Grant James Ryan, Shaun William Ryan, Craig Matthew Ryan, Wayne Alistar Munro, and Del Robinson US Patent Application 20060100956 Published May 11, 2006 Filed: December 21, 2005

Abstract

The present invention provides for a method of updating an internet search engine database with the results of a user's selection of specific web page listings from the general web page listing provided to the user as a result of his initial keyword search entry. By updating the database with the selections of many different users, the database can be updated to prioritize those web listings that have been selected the most with respect to a given keyword, and thereby presenting first the most popular web page listings in a subsequent search using the same keyword search entry.

Update

The CEO of SLI Systems, Shaun Ryan, sent me a friendly note correcting a couple of my statements about the relationship between SLI Systems and Eurekster. While they are a founder, they own a piece of Eurekster, and not the whole company. Thanks, Shaun.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 5:53 PM | Permalink

May 17, 2006

Jeff Weiner Talking At Yahoo Analyst Day

I'm at Yahoo's Analyst Day today, and I thought I'd give a shot at live blogging a session or two. We'll see how it goes, starting with Jeff Weiner, senior vice president, search and marketplace, at Yahoo. He's doing the first session focused exclusively on search, though Lloyd Braun, speaking now, has touched on a few things -- including the new Yahoo Finance charts to come, which look to bring Yahoo up to what Google rolled out with Google Finance.

Slide on web search market size, basically says lots of people search, 1 billion queries estimated worldwide per day, Asia largest growing market, $15 billion estimated in paid search this year, so Yahoo cares about search :)

Differentiating now, web search quality, user experience, vertical search, multimedia search -- all stated briefly as things making Yahoo different but mainly a lead in to what he says is the big differentiator, social search.

Now the generations of search. Newsgroups said to be the closest proxy to search in the early 1990. The alpha chip allowed participation to scale from scientists on newsgroups to millions of webmasters and publishers on the web. (hmm, ok, jeff). Then Inktomi and Google go from millions of web sites hand categorized to billions of pages indexed. And now the next jump -- billions of people on the planet with knowledge. How do you get it?

Now a competitive landscape chart, too quickly to record. Here comes FUSE! You know FUSE, Find Use Share & Expand vision that Yahoo's pitched the past year. Share is at the heart of what they want to do, seeing that as a way to grow.

The Social Search Strategy: get a critical mass of high-quality content (and sadly with My Web, so far they haven't done that, but it might still come. Delicious, Flickr are already successful in their own ways. Also to leverage meta data. "Better search through people" is another motto put out there.

Knowledge Search -- hey, it's Yahoo Answers, with now having 10 million answers maybe is a critical mass success. Here's a personal anecdote from him on using it. Esther Dyson says something about The Queen (ruler of my wife's country) talking about the world smelling like fresh paint. What the hell does that mean? He goes to Yahoo Answers to get an answer (why do I think I could find it in regular web search in only a few minutes -- I'll try later).

Hey! Hey, hey, hey -- OK, now Yahoo has picked up the queen thinks the world smells like fresh paint from Yahoo Answers and puts it at the top of Yahoo regular/web search.

Much of the world has it now, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Latin America to get it soon.

Moving on to Yahoo Groups, which has a Yahoo Answers module in it now. Here come numbers. Yahoo Groups has 6 million groups, 90 million members participating. "That's a lot of knowledge. That's a lot of untapped knowledge." Especially people who might not have the tech savvy to publish in other ways. Sure -- but come, it hasn't been that hard to do web pages or dare I saw blogs.

Now social bookmarking, good it's said to get opinions and trusted sources rather than factual stuff web search is said to be good at. Jaguar typed into Yahoo, first thing in your mind? Car -- "yeah, for this audience it is," he says. Oh, here it comes -- multiple meanings of Jaguar. I've got stuff MSN talked about years ago showing how there are different meanings (and they had a good system to give you different options). On delicious, most searches for jaguar bring up the operating system. He calls this flavoring. What happens if you take these flavors search experiences from Groups and put it into Yahoo search. "Powerful stuff." Yep, if they do it.

Social media -- it's Flickr time as the eyes of the world. Flickr is changing our society right before our eyes. Wow -- but I supposed so. Goodness knows it's even got me using it :)

Now marry the eyes of the world with the world's most popular home page -- that's Flickr on Yahoo, plus Flickr being on the Nokia N-Series multimedia computers (you know, their smartphones).

Yahoo Video search is coming and will allow sharing. Yeah, so take that YouTube, Google Video. Well, we'll see. Flickr should give them some help here, though.

Monetization! Sponsored listings, graphical media, sponsorships, subscriptions, marketplaces for people to sell -- some of these will come to various new search properties.

Accomplishments. Yahoo Answers out of beta and going general and the 10 million answers I said earlier and a warning that don't expect that number to necessarily be updated going forward. Up from 1 million users in Jan to 7 million know.

Taiwan, got Yahoo Knowledge and grew share in 2004 through 2005.

My Web is mentioned, a redesign is coming in the next few weeks.

Flickr, with the founders on the cover of Newsweek and them making the Time 100 most influential people list (hey, congrats!). 260 million photo tags out there, so don't think these are niche properties. "These properties are changing the world."

Social search is equal to 30 percent of overall web search.

It was never about man versus machine. It was about man with machine -- and that fuels FUSE vision, which is how Yahoo believes it will once again change the game.

Questions (to panel of all speakers from the morning, answers from Jeff unless I note otherwise)

What incentives rolling out to help with participation? Personal, social and economic he says. Personal utility for individuals, get an answer, you want to use it again. Social -- helping people plus getting some ego boost. It's amazing how that's been driving things, he says. It is very much part of what's made Flickr and other properties successful. Economic lightly touched on content match but think he may have meant YPN. It is not as simple as making economic systems he stresses, especially if a system is built on generosity.

How about reputation and trust in social search. The reputation system will be at the heart of ensuring quality. Yahoo Answers is about to get that in a few weeks, so you can see how reputable others are.

What's the deal with query share loss in the use but gaining monetization nonetheless? I don't think there's any one factor, many different dimensions, he thinks social search are making a diffference, getting new customers and much more integration is to come.

It's Safa Rashtchy from Piper Jaffray -- he typed the queen query into Google and got the page from Yahoo. Jeff -- they've been always after high quality, he jokes. Safa - you're happy helping Google with quality. Jeff -- it drives traffic to us. Yes, absolutely. I'm sure Yahoo's thrilled to have their pages everywhere. Safa, how come sharing and answers didn't take off before until Wikipedia. Jeff -- search is far more part of our lives, as is the way we share with others, sharing "has only started to grow." Knowledge search in Korea took off because knowledge corpus there was much smaller. In the US, felt it was already so large, what difference would it make. Then chief engineer played with tools in Taiwan, said this isn't about search, this is about community and sharing -- and that's powerful.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:09 PM | Permalink

May 15, 2006

Yahoo Answers Hits 10 Million Mark; Answers Creeping Into Regular Search Results

Yahoo patted themselves on the back for reaching the 10 million answers posted mark on Yahoo Answers. Part of that announcement was the fact that Yahoo Answers are appearing both organically and through vertical means into the search results.

As SEO Book also points out a search on best dog for apartment will show few results from Yahoo Answers in the organic listings. Also a search on harley davidson will show a Yahoo Shortcut at the bottom of the results page to Yahoo Answers.

The vertical results are nice, but will webmasters begin to complain that Yahoo has a bias towards their own content in the organic results?

Postscript From Danny: 10 million is an impressive number, especially compared to the only 1.2 million (1,183,320) bookmarked pages in the slightly older My Web service that Yahoo also runs. That social search service feels like it is faltering, so perhaps question answering will be how Yahoo gets people involved.

Meanwhile, how's Google Answers doing? I've never seen a total number of questions reported. Poking at it, a search for the and a both give 129,373 matches while -djjdjjdjkkdd (a word not in Google Answers, so looking for answers without that word should give a total count) gives 142,005 matches. So if you trust the counts, Google Answers has dealt with only a fraction of what Yahoo has already covered -- and more than half of those unanswered. That's if you trust the counts. I don't.

Plus, counts don't necessarily mean answers. For example, look at this "question" on Yahoo Answers: "What Is Your Favorite Punk Rock Band." It's more a discussion that getting a particular question answered. Still, there are definitely lots of questions being answered elsewhere on the service, and kudos to it for hitting this milestone.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:41 AM | Permalink

May 10, 2006

Yahoo Italy Blocking Certain Queries?

Nathan Weinberg reported and so did I that Yahoo Italy appears to be blocking results for certain queries. If you conduct a search on preteen at Yahoo Italy, you should notice that no results are returned. Nathan also says if you search for the capitalized version no results are returned as well. So is this some sort of censorship by Yahoo Italy? If so why?

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread named Yahoo.it censored for 'preteen'?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:50 AM | Permalink

May 4, 2006

In Yahoo We Trust - The Link Spam Patent Application

A new Yahoo patent application published today builds upon a method for finding reputable pages on the web to reduce web spam when ranking web pages to present as search results.

When Combating Web Spam with TrustRank was published back in August of 2004, it caused somewhat of a stir, coming up with a way to find reputable web pages based upon a couple of simple concepts:

"Good sites seldom point to bad ones."
"The care with which people add links to their pages is often inversely proportional to the number of links on the page."

While the trustrank paper describes a process for finding good pages, it doesn't take the next step, and explain how it could be used to help rank search results. In the conclusion to the paper we are told that:

In a search engine, TrustRank can be used either separately to filter the index, or in combination with PageRank and other metrics to rank search results

The details of how that would happen weren't included. Today, we're given a glimpse at one possible approach.

Yahoo's patent application, Link-based spam detection, describes a way of sorting spam pages out of search results, in combination with pagerank. It presents a largely automated method for separating reputable pages from spam pages, with a little help from people manually identifying reputable seed pages.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Yahoo Web Search area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 6:27 AM | Permalink

April 21, 2006

Yahoo Updates Search Index

Yahoo has just announced that they updated the Yahoo Web Search index. Last time they did this was on March 28th of last month. Yahoo Product manager wrote that the updates have been "occurring more frequently; this is the result of improvements to the indexing system."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:35 PM | Permalink

March 16, 2006

Yahoo Displayed Google URL With "Terrorists"

Philipp Lenssen reports that if you do a search at Yahoo UK/Ireland for google, the fifth result displays the URL "www.google.ca/#terrorists". I personally do not see this result within the top 100 results when I perform the search. But if I use search.rediff.com, I see the URL listed as "http://www.google.ca/#terrorists" at the tenth position.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:51 AM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Yahoo Adds Quick Links to Wikipedia Search Results

Yahoo announced that they now include Yahoo Quick Links for Wikipedia results. What that means is that when you do a search at Yahoo and a Wikipedia result is found in the search results page, it will add "Quick Links" to "deeper" pages or anchors within the Wikipedia. For example, conduct a search on coffee and then find the result for en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee (I see it at #5). Notice the quick links that have links to additional Wikipedia content, normally anchored down to anchors on the Wikipedia page on coffee.

I personally find this to be much more useful then how Google handles the Wikipedia results. Google places Wikipedia results in the One Box section (top of the page). But Yahoo just adds "deeper" links to the Wikipedia result, not by bringing it above the normal SERPs, but by adding a non-intrusive, "Quick Links" line.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forum thread, Yahoo Makes Real Use of Wiki.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:36 AM | Permalink

February 20, 2006

Inline Yahoo Cache Results in Yahoo Korea

Gary Price reports that Yahoo "Embeds" Cached Pages into Yahoo Korea Search Results Pages. If you do a search on "bill murray" at Yahoo Korea and scroll down to the first organic result (I see www.imdb.com/name/nm0000195). Then click on the orange colored right arrow for the cached result, you will see the page open up to include the cached version.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:55 AM | Permalink

January 26, 2006

Yahoo's Senior VP of Engineering to Become Chief Product Officer

Over on Gigaom, Om Malik reports that Yahoo will name Ash Patel, the senior VP of engineering as their new chief product officer (CPO). Patel will replace Geoff Ralston, who according to Malik, is leaving for "parts unknown."

Om writes: I sat next to Ash, and got into a spirited discussion about why Yahoo is really all about My.Yahoo.Com. My contention is that forget search, because Yahoo has something better than that. My.Yahoo.Com is no longer a portal page, but instead an ?attention page? which can be and should be leveraged to become the aggregator site for complicated digital life. Ash, who spent a lot of time on that particular page - building it I mean - agreed.

I wonder what, if any plans, Yahoo has for their uncluttered and ad-free search interface at Search.yahoo.com. In the past year they have modules with news headlines, email access, and stock index info. In many ways it has the potential to be a My Yahoo Lite that could also work on Yahoo's mobile platform. It would also be useful to offer a module with recommended posts (personalization) from feeds you subscribe too? How about allowing developers the chance to build modules for this page? This page already allows the user to customize which search tabs are visible. Although in the past few months they have made it a challenge to do this. One thing is for sure, when I show the Search.yahoo.com page to end users during presentations, I almost always here and audible "oooh and aaah" with people going on to say that they had no clue that it existed and they're thrilled to know about it.

Om also reports that Yahoo Instant Messenger for the Mac (aka Mac Communicator) should be coming soon.

Bow, the departure of Geoff Ralston is yet another Yahoo exec leaving. In the past few weeks we've blogged about several others departing Yahoo including:

Posted by Gary Price at 6:49 PM | Permalink

January 13, 2006

Show Me the Content: Web Search, Verticals, and Metasearch

Putting the Screws to Google, by Jon Fine from BusinessWeek offers a look at how, "old media could take back its share of search's ad bounty." So, in a sense it's not only putting it to Google but to Yahoo, Ask and other general purpose web engines. Of course, the word Google in a headline gets people to look.

It's an interesting read. How would these "old media" players do it? Fine offers an example of Walt Disney, News Corp., NBC Universal, and The New York Times, joining together to form a "Content Consortium" that offers a search engine containing content that, "no outside search engines can access."

Of course, Google is well aware of proprietary content issues that Fine raises. If you look at the "Risks Related to Our Business and Industry" section of many of Google's SEC filings (including their IPO filing) you'll read:

Proprietary document formats may limit the effectiveness of our search technology by preventing our technology from accessing the content of documents in such formats which could limit the effectiveness of our products and services. A large amount of information on the Internet is provided in proprietary document formats such as Microsoft Word. The providers of the software application used to create these documents could engineer the document format to prevent or interfere with our ability to access the document contents with our search technology. This would mean that the document contents would not be included in our search results even if the contents were directly relevant to a search. These types of activities could assist our competitors or diminish the value of our search results. The software providers may also seek to require us to pay them royalties in exchange for giving us the ability to search documents in their format. If the software provider also competes with us in the search business, they may give their search technology a preferential ability to search documents in their proprietary format. Any of these results could harm our brand and our operating results.

From the BusinessWeek article: "For the life of me, I can't imagine why they haven't done it," says Tom Curley, CEO of Associated Press. Here's one reason: Doing it would require spinal implants for intimidated media barons. But the notion that some pushback is pending is not far-fetched. Curley says he is talking with potential partners about setting up subject-specific Web packages -- say, for travel or basketball -- that will include content from multiple media. Once partners are on board and packages are finalized, search engines will be invited to bid for that traffic.

So the AP might be getting into the vertical search business, interesting.

For a long time I've said verticals will continue to grow in popularity and importance as meta search tools which are getting better all of the time will allow various database and content publishers to offer material (free or fee) to end users who will select these databases at the time of their search based on their information need. Of course, database selection tools to assist users in making these decisions that incorporate personalization, social networks, etc. will also be available.

The metasearch tool could be sponsored and/or have contextually based advertising included as a part of it.

Fee-based content could be made available for free if, for example, the user would view a certain number of ads over a given period of time. Marketers could also sponsor access to databases with fee-based content. For example, Kayak or Expedia might sponsor access to a database containing digitized travel books and videos.

Smaller but focused databases, can potentially offer more precise results (higher precision, lower recall). Don't forget that for many web searchers, the Invisible or Deep Web is everything beyond the first six or seven results. Advanced searchers might also benefit with a unified interface versus numerous interfaces and syntaxes. Training sure would be easier.

In many respects, what I'm talking (in concept not content) has been around for years with services like Dialog and LexisNexis. For example, Dialog offers access to over 1000 databases with many coming from various database producers. I often describe it as a supermarket of databases with a common syntax. Users select various databases depending on their information need.

Another example. I've written numerous times about the many full-text databases (available for free, without going to the library, for personal use). Well, the San Francisco Public Library offers searchable access to many of these databases using a single interface. They call it a cross-database search. Instead of having to go to 20 databases and then search each one, you can pick and choose databases depending on what you're looking for. Articles? Reference answers? Images? Directory info? Business? Local?

The SF Public Library is hardly the only organization offering this type of service. The topic of cross-database (aka federated or metasearching) is a hot topic these days. In fact, NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, has a large initiative in developing metaseach standards.

Postscript: Cold North Wind is another company involved in large newspaper digitization projects. Their PaperofRecord.com site is their public database where you can actually see what they have digitized to this point.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:03 PM | Permalink

December 15, 2005

Yahoo Tweaks Pure Search Interface; Adds New Page Highlighting Popular Services

I've been posting and showing in live presentations the uncluttered, but virtually unknown Yahoo "pure search" page at http://search.yahoo.com for a long time now. When I show it during live demos I often get gasps with people saying something like, "This is so cool, I find the Yahoo.com page way to busy and cluttered."

In October 2004, the page got a new look and added some customization. Users could decide which tabs were visible on their page. For example, if shopping search was of no use, you could click the "edit" link and easily remove the tab. Want to add it back, just click edit, and it back in. I have a screen cap here.

Why a screen cap?

It appears that in the past few days, Yahoo has tweaked the look of the page. The tabs can still be customized but not as easily.

Now, where the edit link was placed is a new link labeled, "More" that takes you to what I believe is a new page that compiles and lists some of Yahoo's tools and services.

You'll find links for advertising, mobile search, desktop search, shortcuts, Yahoo Next, a link to the Yahoo Search blog and more. A link to a complete list of Yahoo's services the "Everything Yahoo" page is also included.

So, what about the customization of search tabs and other user preferences, once available? They're still available but now you need to go to the "More" page and click "preferences" found in the bottom box. Here, in one place, are all of your search preferences including a "Display & Layout" section where you can modify the tabs. Two clicks later you're ready to edit. One change, and this is a good one, is that you can now add a tab to the wonderful Yahoo Audio Search to the Yahoo's uncluttered interface. Of course, it's these options are now buried but that's just the way it goes. Large engines need to appeal to a large group of people and I'm sure logs and focus groups told Yahoo what I found useful was not that big of a deal. However, the good news is that the unclutterd Search.yahoo.com interface is still around. Now, I hope Yahoo does a bit more promo for it. They have done some in the past but I hope we see more of it.

Postscript: "Modules" on the page allow you to see news headlines, and how much unread mail sits in your Yahoo Mail Inbox (assuming you're logged-in as a registered Yahoo user). Note to Yahoo: How about a module to show a selected amount of your My Yahoo RSS feeds?

Postscript 2: I've noticed that the default tabs show on IE and Firefox are different. The Firefox version includes the Yahoo Audio Search tab. Cool!

Posted by Gary Price at 12:45 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Dec. 2005 Update Coming

Sixth Weather Report: Yahoo! Update Tonight from Yahoo warns that an index change will be taking place tonight and provides a feedback address for anyone encountering rocky weather. Dec. '05 Yahoo! Weather Report: Update Underway! at our forums is a place to discuss.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:30 AM | Permalink

November 14, 2005

Yahoo Nov. 2005 Update Part 2 Underway

Yahoo advises that it's making another index update this month. Unlike the first one, more changes are likely. See the Yahoo post for instructions on how to send feedback about any problems you might spot. Want to discuss or comment? See our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Yahoo Nov. 2005 Update & Weather Report.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:49 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Yahoo Nov. 2005 Update Weather Report Issued

Google's not the only one updating. Yahoo's Tim Mayer issued a search index weather report last week saying it would be "mild and quick." Indeed, scanning a few search blogs and forums, chatter seems light about concerns. Barry has a rundown on forum discussion areas here. Since it hasn't yet been named, I dub it "Yahoo Nov. 2005 Update." How's that for catchy? Feel the urge to discuss? Yep, we have a forum thread: Yahoo Nov. 2005 Update & Weather Report.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:26 PM | Permalink

October 30, 2005

The "About" Yahoo Search Page

Not sure if I'm late to the party on this one but I just noticed that Yahoo offers this page that lists all of Yahoo's seach services. The page has a section for searchers (links to tips, options, Yahoo Next, etc.) and another set of links for "site owners" (webmaster info, ad info). The page also has a links to the Yahoo Search Blog, job openings, press mentions, and more.

Don't forget that Yahoo also offers this A-Z index of their entire range of services.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:35 PM | Permalink

September 29, 2005

Yahoo Site Explorer Live: New Way To See All Your Pages, Links

Promised over a month ago, Yahoo Site Explorer is now reality. Yahoo gives the heads-up to everyone here on its Yahoo Search Blog, and how it will show you all pages within a domain, within a particular directory of a domain, all inbound links to a domain and the ability to bulk submit (which was already live earlier and explained more in our earlier post). You can also access through a new Site Explorer API or export data for further analysis. More details also on the help page.

If you're a Search Engine Watch member, I do a through exploration of Site Explorer in this article in the members area. Check it out! Or hey, help support the site and the blog by becoming an SEW member! Below, a summary of my wish list items and observations from that members' article:

You can see all pages from all domains, one domain, or a directory/section within a domain
You can NOT pattern match to find all URLs from a domain, unfortunately
You can see all links to a specific page or a domain
You can NOT exclude your own links, very unfortunately
You can export data, but only the first 50 items, unfortunately
Search commands such as link: aren't supported, and I hope that might come
You can get a feed of your top pages, but I want a feed of backlinks to inform me of new ones that are found. Site owners deserve just as much fun as blog owners in knowing about new links to them.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Yahoo Site Explorer Now Live!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:46 PM | Permalink

Listings Hijacked At MSN, With A Little Help From Google

Google 302 and MSN from Dave Naylor is chock full of badness on the parts of both Google and MSN, showing how Google redirections are causing it to hijack listings in MSN's search results. Dave gives you the short rundown. Here's the spelled out version, and thanks for his help in assembling it.

Look at this search result at MSN UK for batman animated bean bag.
See how the first result is for this page at Kids UK?
Now look at the URL MSN UK lists for that page: http://groups.google.co.uk/froogle_url?q= http://www.kidsuk.co.uk/shop/catalog/ Batman-Bedding-p-1-c-1288.html %3Fsource%3Dfroogle&fr=AJrr2tQq23-_SJjef Mma5wwNUyhA6FBUGEdlEBymj9jJAAAAAAAAAAA
See the bold part? That shows that MSN believes this page is hosted at groups.google.co.uk.
What's happening is over at Froogle UK, all links you click on there are redirected out of Google and to the destination sites, but...
Google is using 302 temporary redirection, which is causing MSN to let it "hijack" these listings.
To be clear, MSN is NOT listing a Google page, even though the page has a Google URL. Look at the cached copy of that page, and you can see that it is the same page as at Kids UK. But Google has control over the URL in MSN's results.
In other words, should Google lose its mind, it could at any point send MSN a cloaked version of the Kids UK page and likely maintain the ranking while showing human visitors something else entirely. Kids UK is not in control of that listing on MSN, even though it currently leads to the Kids UK site. It's been hijacked by Google! If Google were using a 301 redirection, however, this shouldn't be happening.
Side point. If this is a Froogle UK thing, why does that URL say GROUPS.google.co.uk? Google UK has some domain madness going on. Visit the home page. Click the Froogle link to get this page. Now click the Groups link to reach this page. Notice now how even though you are in Google Groups, the the froogle.co.uk domain is what shows in your address bar. That shouldn't be happening. Other mix-ups like this are leading to the confusion.
Hey! What's MSN doing crawling Froogle anyway? The robots.txt file there should be keeping it out, right? Sure. But if some site has made copies of Froogle results, scraped the content as fodder for a fake blog or something else to attract traffic, MSN might crawl that and thus see the Froogle redirections.

Overall, a nice demonstration of why MSN needs to consider how it handles redirection. My Revisiting Hijacking & Redirects: Moving To A Solution story gives you more background on the hijacking situation as it especially has impacted Google.

I also wrote that story as a lead in for our Indexing Summit 2 session as SES San Jose that was held last month, to see if we could get a standard solution to handing redirection and eliminate these type of problems. I was planning to finally write up what happened at that session next week, and I still will, promise. But here's the summary:

Yahoo: We have a solution (as described in my article) that seems to work.
Google: Matt Cutts wants to use the Yahoo solution but the engineer overseeing how redirections are handled says they've solved it another way. Matt said if you still see it happening, report it to Google, and then he's got some ammunition to say "I told you so" and get the Yahoo solution going. It's been reported at least once already. Bacon polenta on Matt's blog explains that and more important, gives updated instructions on how to report a hijacking in Google's listings.
Ask Jeeves: Thinks it has a handle on the situation and doesn't need to follow the Yahoo solution.
MSN: Didn't take part in the summit.

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread, Google Hijacks Batman Room Decor Listing At MSN!

Postscript: I was incorrect on the robots.txt banning. The robots.txt file for Google Groups wouldn't have prevented MSN from crawling Froogle results that can be accessed under that domain. More in the forum thread above.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:42 PM | Permalink

September 28, 2005

Yahoo Paid Inclusion Redirection & Hijacking Confusion

Paid Inclusion Making Yahoo Results Seem Hijacked? looks at the confusing situation one of our forum moderators Jeff Martin found when looking at some listings in Yahoo. They redirected through Business.com until winding up at sites that had nothing to do with that B2B search engine. Jeff also describes more here. What's up? I posted my thoughts in the forum thread. To me, it looks like Yahoo is taking a paid inclusion feed from Business.com -- hence why the click redirects through Business.com before hitting the destination sites. In other words, buy some listings in Business.com, and those are distributed also through Yahoo. That's a long-time tactic. LookSmart long did the same.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:33 AM | Permalink

September 27, 2005

Roundup Of Google Size Announcement Coverage

Yesterday was pretty much spent by me writing my story about Google claiming to be most comprehensive search engine but also dropping any page count from its home page. That story, if you missed it, is up here: End Of Size Wars? Google Says Most Comprehensive But Drops Home Page Count. Now that I've emerged from my writing cocoon, here's a roundup of what others are saying on the subject:

We wanted something special for our birthday is the post on Google's blog telling the world it is 1,000 times larger than when it started in September 1998, three times larger than any other search engine, but no mention of the actual count or that the count has been removed from the home page. Instead, Google asks readers to "see for yourself" how effective the new index is. The post also points at a new Sizing Up Search Engines page where Google explains that it could prove the number of unique documents it has but doesn't. Instead, it tells readers "you can prove it yourself" and advises them to search for uncommon information as a test.
Google Announces New Index Size, Shifts Focus from Counting from John Battelle covers how he also sees the index wars as over "at least in terms of raw counting" and how it shifts the debate "back to relevance, where honestly, it really belongs." Absolutely!
The end of the index size wars (we hope) from Charlene Li is pleased like John, like me, like Phil Bradley and no doubt many, many others that we're getting away from "mine is bigger than yours" comparisons, though she sees the obvious irony of Google still saying its bigger as part of the pullback. She also asks, "How long do you think it will be before some journalist does some math and writes that Google's index has 60 billion documents? Hopefully, never." Well, she's effectively a journalist on her blog, so never just became reality. But of course someone was to publish the simple math, if not her. The point is, when both Google and Yahoo themselves tell you that their counts aren't comparable, then it doesn't matter what the number is that either releases. It's like Google saying it has "60 billion GoogleTons of pages" and Yahoo saying it has "20 billion YahooTons of pages." What's the conversion rate for GoogleTons into YahooTons? We don't know. And if you don't have that common metric, then you can't compare the figures.
Google: No, really ours is the biggest, you'll just have to trust us on that ok? from Nick over at Threadwatch sees Google taking a "slap" at Yahoo over the issue of duplicated entries. That's ironic, too, since if you read my story, I showed an example where Google has three duplicated entries in one example -- all of which are counted. It's another reason why I'm glad we're getting away from counts. Nick also wonders if rather than a pullback from the index wars, we're seeing an escalation. I say a pullback, Nick. Yahoo's already making statements that it agrees users should judge for themselves. I'd expect that they'll later further say they consider themselves to be most comprehensive and take the Google line that users can verify this for themselves. As long as we don't see actual count figures come back as "proof" of comprehensiveness, we may move along for a bit.
Google: Mystery index from Jean Véronis who's done some great watching of search engine counts notes that the Google claim meshes with his estimate of where the index was going.
Google says size matters less, drops search boasts from Reuters has a basic overview of the move by Google.
Google to take down front-page boast about index size from the Associated Press provides another overview with the idea that verification is left to a user "taste test."
How Many Pages in Google? Take a Guess from the New York Times also has the "taste test" idea and gets Google CEO Eric Schmidt "not to rule out" the idea that a prize might be given for the best guess at its size.
Google touts size of its search index has Google ending the CNET news blackout, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt doing a phone interview on the announcement along with the Yahoo statement others are also being given:

"We congratulate Google on removing the index size number from its home page and for recognizing it is a meaningless number," Yahoo said in a statement. "As we've said in the past, what matters is that consumers find what they are looking for, and we invite Google users to compare their results to Yahoo search at http://search.yahoo.com."

Open Letter To Google Chief Eric Schmidt is from WebmasterWorld member reseller who has issues with Google's claims of being larger in terms of "unduplicated" pages. My story above gives examples of how some duplicate pages are already in Google. The complaint in partiular covers the fact that while duplicate pages exist, de-duplication efforts may also remove the original documents from Google, rather than mirrors.

I may add further links as I see unique stuff flow in.

Want to discuss? Visit the Google Drops The Home Page Count thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:57 AM | Permalink

Google Claims To Be Most Comprehensive - But Helps Defuse Size Wars By Dropping Home Page Count

Today's SearchDay article Google Says Now Biggest, Most Comprehensive - But Size Wars Defused By Dropped Home Page Count covers the latest chapter in the dispute over search engine size that started with last month's claim by Yahoo to have outdistanced Google in index size.

Google now says it is three times larger than its closest competitor (ie, Yahoo) and is the most comprehensive search engine available. However, it's not offering proof of that through an actual count. Indeed, Google is dropping the famous number of web pages it is "searching" from its home page.

Why? Because comparison counts don't mean much any more, something Yahoo has said itself. In short, Google is leaving it to users to prove to themselves whether it does -- or does not -- measure up as most comprehensive.

More in my story, as well as a long look at why count figures themselves aren't the comprehensiveness metric they've sometimes been in the past.

Want to discuss? Visit the Google Drops The Home Page Count thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 AM | Permalink

September 21, 2005

Save the Time of the Searcher: Yahoo's New "Quick Links"

On Search Engine Roundtable, Barry blogs about Yahoo's new Quick Links feature that you'll now find included in some Yahoo web results summaries.

Quick Links allow the searcher to save time and clicks (something we like) by integrating direct links to specific parts of web site. For example, this search for American Airlines shows Quick Links right below the text snippet. You'll find links to the reservations, travel info, and AAdvantage (American's frequent flyer program) portions of the American web site. On the Yahoo Search Blog, you'll read more about the technology and learn that Quick Links are generated by an algorithm that, "tries to guess the most used information about that page." Also on the blog you'll find a Quick Links example where services like cool send to phone feature from Yahoo Local are also included as a Quick Link. Note: When I searched for several stores and restaurants in my neighborhood I found web pages about these places but they didn't show any Quick Links. It's likely that Yahoo is gradually rolling out Quick Links for local establishments.

Embedding links to non-web search services (like the send to phone feature) also reminds me that while those of us who watch the close industry closely know about specific tools and databases that Yahoo and other large engines offer, many users only know about web results. This is why including links to these services on web results pages gives "web search only" users a chance to learn about and use non-web search services. Heck, all of the major engines now include thumbnail images from their imagery databases on web results pages if the query string suggests that the searcher is looking for this type of material. Promotion and timesavers all rolled into one.

Finally, Yahoo's new service will likely remind you of what Google has been testing in the past few weeks.

Want to discuss Yahoo Quick Links? Here's a link to a thread in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:17 PM | Permalink

September 18, 2005

Yahoo Cache Now Offers Direct Links to Wayback Machine

It appears that Yahoo has joined Gigablast and Clusty and is now providing direct links to "archived" versions of pages via The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. You'll find a direct link to check to see if older versions of the page are available in the box at the top of every page that Yahoo caches. Look for the text link that reads, "check for previous versions at the Internet Archive." Click the link and you'll transported to The Wayback Machine to see if older copies for the page/URL you're viewing have been archived.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:35 PM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Squeezing The Search Engine Loaf For Freshness

Phil Bradley points to this research paper, The Freshness Of Web Search Engines' Databases (PDF), out of Heinrich-Heine-University in Dusseldorf that analyzed the freshness of Google, Yahoo and MSN over six weeks in February and March 2005. Google came out best with the most pages updated almost daily, but MSN had the best "worst case" scenario with no page more than 20 days old. Yahoo was said to be "chaotic." There's much much more in the paper which, sadly and ironically, is already out of date in terms of knowing what's happening right now. But having benchmark for various points in time is great.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:06 PM | Permalink

September 2, 2005

Yahoo War -- Pit Two Terms Against Each Other To See Who Wins By Count

We've written many, many times before that search result counts can mean little in terms of actual popularity. With that caveat in mind, have fun with Yahoo War. Enter two terms and get back the counts for each term, highest count wins. Technorati versus Feedster? It's Technorati. Google versus Yahoo? It's Yahoo. (But do it manually on Google, and it's Google that wins, 232 million to 168 million). Danny Sullivan versus Gary Price? Sorry, Gary -- I win. But hey, I've also got references to Danny Sullivan the race car driver to help me out.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:40 AM | Permalink

August 25, 2005

Yahoo (Initially) Beats Google For More Relevant Listings For Google Talk

In a post titled: Searching for Google Talk on currybet.net, Martin Belam reports on a quick test he ran yesterday when he went looking for links about the new Google Talk service in the web databases at Google and Yahoo. According to Belam's report, at 5pm yesterday "no links about the new messaging application in the top ten" at Google. However, Yahoo, "had already indexed and ranked the wikipedia article about the new application. In addition Yahoo! pulled in three news stories about the Google Talk launch at the top of the results set." Martin's post includes a couple of screen caps of what he saw when he ran his test.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:27 AM | Permalink

August 11, 2005

More on the Total Database Size Battle and Googlewhacking With Yahoo

The total web database size claims that Yahoo released this week continue to have people talking. It's so not a big deal, at least for me, the searcher. For Gary, the search industy watcher, it's interesting to see another round of database size wars up and running but it's still not a big deal in the searching sense. We've been through this before. What Total Size Wars 2005 illustrates that pr/bragging rights and mindshare are so crucial in the today's search business.

Yesterday, Google went on the record with John Battelle:

"Our scientists are not seeing the increase claimed in the Yahoo! index. The data we have doesn't support the 19.2 (billion page) claim and we're confused by that."

Both Google and Yahoo officials have also talked to the Search Engine Watch team. In fact, during the GoogleDance the other night, Danny, Chris, and I spent about 90 minutes chatting and looking over some of the same reasearch that they also shared with Battelle. I'm sure Danny will have more to say about our meeting next week.

Total size battles are nothing new. For example, back in the summer of 2003, we had something similar go down with total size claims between Google and AllTheWeb. Of course, the search biz in 2003 wasn't what it is today.

So, what are possible next steps or is this something that will be repeated over and over again and not just between Google and Yahoo?

First, remain calm, all is well. Enjoy the weekend.

Second, if total size claims are so important to Yahoo, Google, and others, how about both of these companies and others sitting down and agreeing to an independent third party auditing and certifying future size claims? I just wonder if each company would be willing to disclose the needed info for a third party to make accurate verifications. Btw, in the short term, I'm also hoping that noted search engine expert Greg Notess, will run some tests and offer his search size estimates.

Again, do total size numbers mean anything in the first place to the searcher? No. We all know what does matter. However, as we've seen this week, this number sure means something in the pr/marketing/branding/press coverage game.

Those of you who decide to do your own size tests need to remember that without knowing precisely what each company is counting, it's very difficult to measure apples with apples.

For example, to get accurate total size numbers it would be useful to know how each engine handle the followning and other variables:

Precisely how do Google and Yahoo handle stemming?
How does each company count non-html docs in their totals?
Does each company have a cutoff for the amount of content on a page or in a document they crawl and index?
Since both companies include links on results page that don't explicitly contain each and every search term it would be important to understand how Google and Yahoo handle anchor text?
How is punctuation handled?
The differences between what is seen on a results page and the total database. Do dupes count in the overall total? What about mirrored pages?
How does each handle discovered but uncrawled urls in their totals?
What does spam filtering mean to all of this?
When searching are you hitting the entire database? Could some portions of the dbase be inaccessible at the instant you click the search button?
What was the size of the Yahoo database before this week's increase?

Also, attempting to make estimates simply by running a bunch of searches on both engines and only looking at total page estimates are not doing anything productive. The page estimates listed at the top of web results page are not accurate especially as a measurement tool. To get total page counts you're going to have to literally count each and every result and now how each engine handles the variables listed above (and others). Very time consuming.

Googlewhacking with Yahoo

Since a Googlewhack is only Googlewhack if it returns just one result, I thought it would be interesting but far from scientific to see if that one result would or wouldn't appear if you ran the same Googlewhack producing search with Yahoo. Would more results appear? Less? Since these searches produce just one result, counting would likely be easy. I selected 20 recent "whacks" from the current Googlewhack stack.

I'll leave the interpretation, if any, up to you. For me, the following was just a fun exercise and proves nothing. Btw, I wonder if Googlewhack founder, Gary Stock, and his crew of "whackers" are going to start Yahoowhacks?

Results A Googlewhack equals a Google search producing one result.

10 Googlewhacks were not found (zero results) in Yahoo. 6 Googlewhacks were found in Yahoo. In other words, the same single result at both Yahoo and Google. 4 Googlewhacks found more than one unique result at Yahoo. ++ 3 Googlewhacks searched with Yahoo found one additional result. ++ 1 Googlewhack searched with Yahoo found 6 additional results.

Specific Searches + tartiest dieing Not found in Yahoo

+ intergalactically janitorial Not found in Yahoo

+ icebreaking snaggletooth Not found in Yahoo

+ poboys moneybag Not found in Yahoo

+ pangea anthropocentrically Not found in Yahoo

+ bedtimes downshifter Not found in Yahoo

+ obverse tartiness Not found in Yahoo

+ hubristic sweatsuits Not found in Yahoo

+ overload underkills Not found in Yahoo

+ tailgated winnebagoes Not found in Yahoo ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ + supercharged disestablishmentarianism 2 results found in Yahoo. One unique

+ wildebeest colonoscopies 7 results found in Yahoo, Six unique

+ fictionizing rumsfeld 2 found in Yahoo. One unique

+ arachnophobic swashbuckler 2 results, One unique ------------------------------- ------------------------------- + semipublicly popularized Same result found in both

+ gifting twoonies Same result found in both

+ cruddiness pretentiousness Same result found in both

+ congratulating schoolchilds Same result found in both

+ fabulator marsupial Same result found in both

+ overaggressively tapped Same result found in both

Notes: I'll run a new random Googlewhack test next week and report if if find anything different or interesting. Also, no word if I was searching on the "new" larger Yahoo web database. OK, that's it. Remember, TGIF!

Postscript: I just noticed that John posted a few more comments on his blog including the following. He writes, "Would I be surprised if Google announced shortly that its index was magically up to, oh, 22 billion or so? No, I would not." I agree with John, Total size numbers from all engines are just claims. They've always just been claims. To move beyond this, some type of agreed upon standards and methods are needed. Otherwise, this week's headlines will likely happen over and over again.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:14 PM | Permalink

August 10, 2005

New Yahoo Site Explorer To Provide Linkage Data, Bulk Submit

During the Search Engine Q&A on Links session here at SES today, Tim Mayer from Yahoo said his company is launching (not live yet) Yahoo Site Explorer that provides webmasters and other interested parties with linkage data.

From a SES Session Summary: Yahoo Site Explorer is a place to see which pages Yahoo has indexed. After clicking "Explore URL" you'll find the number of pages found in the Yahoo Index and also the number of inlinks. You can sort pages by "depth," submit URLs, and quickly export the results to CSV format. Site Explorer is also supported via an API.

Postscript From Danny: The new tool will also allow bulk submitting of URLs. Expect further details when it goes live.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:32 PM | Permalink

August 8, 2005

Yahoo Announces Total Size Count

Looks like we might have a search engine total size wars beginning.

As I've said in the past total size numbers are primarily used for marketing purposes, bragging rights if you like. Michael Liedtke from the AP reports that Yahoo is announcing a total size count. The number Yahoo is announcing is 20 billion "web objects." The number is a combination of total web pages and total images.

Yahoo said its index, boosted by a recent upgrade, covers 20.5 billion online "objects," comprised of about 19 billion documents and 1.5 billion images. By comparison, Google said it tracks 11.3 billion objects.

Tim Mayer points out on the Yahoo Search Blog that the "total objects" number also includes more than 50 million audio files.

This is the first time Yahoo has publicly announced a total web count. However, they have announced a total image and audio file counts in the past.

Interesting numbers but don't get carried away with them. Yahoo will have "the largest" bragging rights until (I would bet) Google announces a larger number. Then, it will be Yahoo's turn again. Will MSN join in the fun? What about Ask Jeeves? And so it goes. What really matters is relevance and other metrics. Hat tip to Tim Mayer for not forgetting this important point and mentioning this in his Yahoo blog post.

I want to make sure that while Yahoo's total size number is just a number, a claim really since all size numbers from just about all web engines are difficult to verify, Yahoo Search does deserve lots of credit for building some first-rate products over the past couple of years. Web search but also offering several excellent specialty indexes including image search, audio search (here's my overview), and a great news search engine. Yes, competition means good things for the searcher. (-:

Don't forget that very often a smaller, focused web databases are also very capable of providing excellent results. Finally, since many searchers only look at the first few results, just because a page is listed somewhere in a results set doesn't mean it will be seen. Again, this is why relevance is so important. Maybe the Invisible or Deep Web in 2005 is everything beyond the first 10 results?

Postscript: As web engines grow larger, the searcher would be doing themeselves a favor and learn to to take advantage of some of the many advanced features web engines offer that could do wonders in providing more precise queries and more relevant results. A little learning can go a long way.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:43 PM | Permalink

August 1, 2005

Listen Live: Jeff Weiner, Yahoo's SVP of Search, Speaks!

While many of us are at SES next Monday (August 8, 2005), Jeff Weiner will be talking Yahoo Search at the Pacific Crest Technology Forum. Jeff's presentation will be webcast live beginning at 1pm EDST/10am PDST via a link on the Yahoo Investors Relations page. Safe travels Jeff. I hope you're back in time to say hello at SES (yes, I'll even be there).

Posted by Gary Price at 6:55 PM | Permalink

July 20, 2005

Yahoo Weatherman Tim Mayer Announces Release of New Web Index

Yahoo's Tim Mayer alerts the search community that Yahoo Search released a new index last night. He writes:

The changes will be a little more intense than the second weather report and changes will continue over the next week or two.

If you want to discuss the new Yahoo index, check out this thread in the SEW Forums. Barry (aka RustyBrick) points out other threads here.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:16 PM | Permalink

July 14, 2005

Yahoo Search Translator Released

The Yahoo Search Blog and a News.com article: Parlez vous Deutsche, provide a look at the new Yahoo Search Translator.

This new service takes search queries submitted in German, translates the query into English and French, and then allows the searcher to quickly find and read not only German language material but also English language content that has been mechanically translated into German.

Why are they doing this?

Via the Yahoo Search Blog: If you can't read English, you can't make use of more than half of the web's information. For example, a searcher in Germany can only access less than 10% of the web in German.

Technology from Systran powers the translation. Systran also powers Yahoo's Babelfish translation service.

If you don't speak German, YSB offers a couple of examples to see precisely how the service operates.

Yahoo's Eckart Walther told News.com that Yahoo Search Translator for French content is in the works with other languages becoming available within the next year.

Smart move by Yahoo pointing out on their blog that mechanical translation is good but far from perfect.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting and potentially very powerful idea.

Back in January I posted a brief item about Babelplex. This service leverages Google's translation software to translate queries from one language to another. Users can then click and translate entire web pages if necessary.

Btw, Yahoo Search also launched their new German language blog today.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:22 AM | Permalink

July 6, 2005

I Was Unfairly Ousted From Yahoo Via DMCA! Plus, How To Oust When They Deserve It

A twofer here, the story of someone who found they got removed from Yahoo via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but can't get a copy of the complaint, while how you might use the DMCA against those you feel deserve it.

Spotted via Threadwatch, DMCA: The New Blackhat for Yahoo! search from Brain Turner looks at how a DMCA complaint got him dumped out of Yahoo. The company confirmed he was removed but won't apparently provide any details of what was in the complaint. In contrast, Google makes all such complaints public.

That evil DMCA! Then again, it's pretty handy for those times someone has stolen your content and refuses to remove it. The DMCA won't get the content off the web, but Jenstar in our forums explains how it can very quickly at least starve that content of search oxygen. The What to do when someone steals your original content thread she started runs down the options in a comprehensive fashion.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:17 PM | Permalink

June 30, 2005

A Search Marketer's Look At Yahoo My Web 2.0

For Search Engine Watch members, I've posted A Search Marketer's Look At Yahoo My Web 2.0, which looks at how search marketers may -- or may not -- have an impact on Yahoo's new My Web 2.0 system that Chris Sherman covered yesterday. Among the topics I address:

The difference between "regular" Yahoo versus Yahoo My Web 1.0 and 2.0 from the perspective of what a searcher sees.
A revisit of how My Web 1.0's block and save links work.
How My Web 2.0 pushes down "regular" results, making it important to understand My Web 2.0 better. A screenshot from the story speaks volumes about this. Regular Yahoo is on the left, and Yahoo for a My Web 2.0 user is on the right:

How My Web 2.0 users are more likely to detour into My Web 2.0 results.
How My Web 2.0 result listings are generated uniquely for each user based on what they and their community saves.
How the MyRank system uses a person's community to rank keyword-driven search results, along with other key factors.
How tagged results are the way to see what "everyone" is interested in and how searchers will probably end up in the most popular tags.
How the tags currently seem extremely vulnerable to tag cloud bombing, with an example of me pushing the two highlighted tags below into the top results with little effort:

How Yahoo might solve the problem, along with how it says more defenses are going into place (see also this article I've posted for everyone today on tagging issues).
An long-term strategy to ensure your fresh content is feeding into tag areas in an appropriate, searcher-friendly manner.
How the tags are effectively about to become the world's largest collection of Free For All link pages but how that might also change.
More tips on how to import and feed content into the system, including the need to use RSS 1.0 rather than RSS 2.0 currently, if you want to import categories to become tags.
The wish for Yahoo to roll out a "Save To My Web" button that you can feature to your visitors similar to the Add To My Yahoo button already offered that site owners can display to visitors and tips on getting saved until that happens.
How to appropriate extend your network or reach others who may want to see your content.
Making use of notes for reputation management
How the trust network will grow to impact ranking of all Yahoo results, not just My Web ones.

Though written for marketers in mind, anyone interested in more about how the My Web 2.0 system works should find the article useful. As said, it's offered to those who support Search Engine Watch by becoming members -- support that's greatly appreciated by your hard working editors over here!

Also posted on the blog are these related articles today:

Plus there's Chris Sherman's overview article from yesterday, Yahoo Integrates Personal & Social Search with My Web 2.0. Want to discuss or comment on any of this? Visit our forum thread, New Yahoo My Web 2.0 & MyRank.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:32 PM | Permalink

June 22, 2005

Extreme Yahoo

All too often, we use our favorite search sites in a cursory fashion, not taking the time to fully explore the full range of services and tools available. And that's too bad, because all of the major search engines offer a variety of capabilities that can be useful—and in some cases incredibly valuable.

Today's SearchDay article, Yahoo to the Max, reviews a new book by noted search guru Ran Hock, a detailed guide to virtually everything offered by Yahoo. It's an excellent book that goes beyond explaining mechanics, offering dozens of strategies, tips and techniques for getting the most out of a longtime familiar search service.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:22 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2005

Yahoo Will Update Index Tonight

A "Weather Report" on the Yahoo Search Blog says that the Yahoo index will be updated tonight. Thanks to SEO Roundtable for the tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:18 AM | Permalink

May 12, 2005

Yahoo Adds New Option to Advanced Search Page

I just noticed that Yahoo has tweaked their advanced search page. You'll now see an new option that allows you to limit your query to material with a Creative Commons license. A Creative Commons "only" search interface is also available. Yahoo and Creative Commons announced a partnership in March. More in this post.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:06 AM | Permalink

April 20, 2005

Dissecting Yahoo Search Redirection Codes

Last year, I did a breakdown for Search Engine Watch members of what all those parameters mean that are embedded within a Yahoo redirection string. Huh? When you click on a listing at Yahoo, you're actually redirected through Yahoo's own servers and certain information embedded in the redirection URL is recorded. Nacho Hernandez spots some new one ones since I wrote about this last year and tries his own dissection in Stripping out the Guts of a Yahoo! Search URL at Search Engine Roundtable. Ideally, no one would have to dissect at all -- Yahoo would just explain what the codes mean. I asked last year, but no one ever got back on that particular question :). OK, I'll be asking again. Meanwhile, want to discuss or contribute? Visit our forum thread, Defining the Yahoo! Search URL Parameters.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

April 18, 2005

Overture Becomes Yahoo Search Marketing & Comparing Listing Products At Yahoo To Google

The rebranding promised in March has happened. Overture has officially become Yahoo Search Marketing, marked by the launch of a new Yahoo Search Marketing site that lists all of Yahoo's search-related listing products.

It's a good change that ought to help new advertisers. Rather than having to explain that they need to buy "Overture" to be on Yahoo, Yahoo can now direct them to a site that retains its branding.

But with rebranding can come confusion, so I thought it would be helpful to look at all the products listed at the new site and also compare them to Google products. In particular, an email I got from a reader prompted the idea:

I am trying to find the "comparable" Yahoo program to Google AdWords. Since their rebranding of Overture last week, I'm still looking unsuccessfully for something like Precision Match, but it looks as if the program has been axed?

We've been using Google AdWords since it launched and are very happy with the format and back office (most of all the results). Is Yahoo offering a similar program? Honestly, I've read about their "Sponsored Search" and it's simply not obvious.

Meanwhile at our Search Engine Watch forums, a thread on the rebranding shows similar confusion:

I thought Overture was being renamed to Yahoo Search Marketing, but this page boasts a range of products, including Shopping, Travel, Directory, PPI & Overture (sponsored search).

The chart below gives you a side-by-side look at all the products listed on the new Yahoo site, along with some other listings areas that I thought made sense to add. If you're a Search Engine Watch member, see this extended post that provides commentary and additional advice and information about each listing area.

Listing Type Yahoo Google Web Search Listings Yahoo Submit Your Site Add Your URL To Google Web Search Paid Inclusion Search Submit Express & Search Submit Pro n/a (but advertisers can get listing support) Search Ads (Paid Placement) Sponsored Search AdWords (search targeted) Contextual Ads Content Match AdWords (content-targeted; AdSense is name for PUBLISHER program) Shopping Listings Product Submit Froogle Feed (free) Travel Listings Travel Submit n/a Directory Listings Directory Submit ODP Submit Local Search Ads Local Sponsored Search AdWords Regional & Local Targeting Local Search Listings Local Enhanced Listings & Local Listings (free) Google Local Business Center News Listings Yahoo News Submissions Google News Source Suggestion

Want to discuss the change from Overture to Yahoo? Visit our forum thread, Yahoo! Search Marketing is Released. Also check out Yahoo To Buy Overture for background on Yahoo buying Overture back in 2003, GoTo Makes Overture To New Name for the last rebranding Overture went through, that of losing it original name of GoTo back in 2001 and GoTo Sells Positions, about GoTo's launch in 1998.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:48 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2005

Google SEO Support Given To Advertisers

Google & SEO Support For Advertisers now posted for Search Engine Watch members looks at how increased editorial listings support being given to large advertisers is raising concerns with search marketers and threatening the "church and state" division between ads and editorial results that Google has long sought to maintain.

In the story, I look at how Google will provide large advertisers with guidance on getting listed in its editorial results, upon request. The company has also provided this guidance to potential advertisers it seeks to gain.

Google acknowledges both points but stresses that only basic information is provided, similar to what someone might read on its web site or hear at a conference. Marketers I talked with for the story agree that no "insider" information to produce top rankings is being provided. However, the story does look anew at how some may get the go-ahead to do things that Google's public guidelines don't allow.

I also do a review of the situation with other search engines, in terms of what they say they do -- or do not -- provide in terms of express support. The story touches on how Ask Jeeves may finally come up with a free Add URL system of some type, while Yahoo hints at some type of new support system.

Overall, that's what I urge in the story -- a new, guaranteed paid support system that isn't tied to cost-per-click paid inclusion fees that all the major search engines should provide.

Be sure to also see For Whom the Search Bell Tolls out yesterday from Kevin Ryan at iMediaConnection. Kevin's heard the same stories that I've been told recently and touches on them in his piece that focuses on whether support provided by the search engines in part threatens the survival of SEM firms.

Meanwhile, see this post over in our forums that talks about how being a certified AdWords Professional wasn't enough for one search marketing company to be deemed big enough by Google to handle a large client.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:43 PM | Permalink

Google Using ODP Titles In Addition To Descriptions

Google has long used Open Directory descriptions in some cases for the web pages it lists. While that usage seems to have ramped up, it's doing something else I've never seen or heard of before -- using ODP titles for some of the pages in its listings.

Until now, no major search engine has presumed that it should replace a page's HTML title tag as the source of the titles in its listings, that I can recall. And, I'm not sure I like the change. Yes, it will help searchers get a better experience for some searches. However, the idea that the title of my page may come from something completely outside of my control also makes me wary.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable has a good illustration here of what's going on here: Google Showing Dynamic Title. More examples and discussion of this is in forum thread, Google shows different titles depending on search term used. Join that, if you'd like to chime in.

Also see the Meta descriptions displayed in Google results? thread for talk of how the ODP seems to be used more in some cases by Google, and the Does Yahoo Directory use DMOZ listings as the supplementary listings? for a recap of how the ODP even can factor into Yahoo descriptions, plus how other things may influence what Yahoo uses as a description.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:14 PM | Permalink

April 1, 2005

Yahoo Search Issues Index Weather Report

I couldn't be happier. Yahoo picks up the suggestion that many search marketers have wanted (and also see this), an official "weather report" letting them know if an index change was about to happen. Put up your umbrellas, folks, because the weather's about to change on Yahoo. More from the Yahoo Search Blog: Yahoo! Launching New Search Index Tonight, including an email address to report any issues spotted. And yep, it's for real.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:33 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2005

Search Engine Showdown Posts New Items

Greg Notess (also a librarian) has posted a couple of new and interesting items on his Search Engine Showdown site.

You'll find a:

Premlinary review of Exalead

+ A look at how the major web engines handle long words. Notess writes, "The long word showdown found that Gigablast ranked best for long word searching since it could handle a query with a word 1,896 characters long. Google can't handle a 155 character query that both MSN and Yahoo! can find."

+ An item about how Yahoo is now searching stop words in phrases and how it "breaks" several "hacks" for Yahoo proximity searching. I agree with Greg, Yahoo needs to bring back both truncation and the proximity operator that were once available at AltaVista.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:41 PM | Permalink

February 3, 2005

Yahoo Testing YQ "Search By Example" Tool

Yahoo is launching a new tool that lets you submit all or part of a web page that you're viewing as a search query, rather than the traditional method of typing words into a search box. The tool, called Y!Q, analyzes the content you've submitted and extracts the most relevant terms from the page, and presents results accordingly.

It's an interesting idea. Northern Light used to allow searchers to cut and paste an entire web page as a search query, but you had no way to refine results. Y!Q allows you to tweak results in several ways, even letting you add subsequent search result pages into the mix with just a click of a link. Today's SearchDay article, Yahoo Offers New Contextual Search Tool, describes this cool new utility, available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.

Want to discuss? Would adding sponsored links make this a threat to Google AdSense? Join the discussion in our forum thread, Yahoo Testing Contextual Search Tool.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

January 20, 2005

Interface Tweaks to Search.Yahoo.com Interface

I've noticed a tweak to the clutter-free and ad-free Search.Yahoo.com interface this morning. Now included on the page, directly below the search box are: + Three news headlines (and a direct link to Yahoo News) + A direct link to Yahoo Finance along with Dow Jones and NASDAQ Averages + Yahoo Mail users can login and have direct links to their inbox (along with the number of new messages). A direct link to compose mail is also visible.

Removing these features from the interface can be easily accomplished by simply clicking them closed.

For about a year, Search.Yahoo.com users have been able to personalize which search tabs are visible on the page. Look for the "edit" link directly above the search box.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:15 AM | Permalink

January 4, 2005

Did you mean...

The Yahoo search blog just posted a fun entry looking back at the top searches of 2004. Included on the list were the top "misheard" queries, which caused me to laugh:

1. Presidential Poles 2. King Author 3. Serious Satellite Radio 4. Eyes of March

Wasn't King Author the guy in that Shakespeare play about the Eyes of March? ;-)

Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:46 PM | Permalink

December 2, 2004

Fighting Spam At Yahoo Through Content Classification

Over on the Yahoo Search Blog, An Interview with Tim Converse touches on some of the things Yahoo does to shape relevancy and fight spam. A key part is coming up with a way to automatically classify documents across the web, include those that would be considered spam. But don't get too excited -- no secrets on what exactly makes up spam are disclosed.

By the way, those who need an eye-opening experience to what spam is should check out the What Is Spam? session at SES Chicago later this month. Tim Mayer from Yahoo is a veteran of that session from when we offered it several conferences ago and returns as part of the panel. It's designed for those who are worried they might "accidentally" spam a search engine.

Expect Tim and the other panelists to show you some you some egregious examples of spam, resting the minds of those who fear a simple mistake will get them banned.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:22 PM | Permalink

October 17, 2004

New Look at Search.Yahoo.Com

The sleek and clutter-free interface that I normally use to access Yahoo! has a new look.

The colored tabs offering acccess located to the left of the search box at Search.yahoo.com have been replaced with text links located directly ABOVE the search box.

It's still possible to customize the look of the page by selecting the edit link and selecting the databases you want accessible from this page.

The "old" look is still visible on the regional versions of Yahoo that I checked including Canada, UK, and Singapore.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 5, 2004

My Yahoo Search Offers Personal Search Features

Just a day after releasing Yahoo Local, Yahoo has launched My Yahoo Search, offering several new features that allow you to save, annotate and search listings from Yahoo search result pages.

Chris Sherman has a full rundown here in SearchDay: Yahoo Introduces Personal Search. I've written a companion piece for our Search Engine Watch members looking at how personalization impacts the task of search marketers and especially how Yahoo's new "Block Site" feature operates: Search Personalization: A Marketer's Perspective.

Chris finds personalization at Yahoo is nicely done but underpowered compared to some other similar services and more a good start than a must-use application, in his view. I'm much more positive.

Talking with both Chris and Gary, they seem to especially like services that let you both save sites you've visited and search against the text of the pages you've found. That's why they love things like Furl, which LookSmart recently acquired.

Me, I'm not so bothered about needing to search through the pages I've found. Heck, I found them. I know what's on them. Instead, I find myself more interested in trying to recall what I searched for originally and remember sites I found as matches for a query.

For that, I've been loving a9's features. It's automatically keeping track of things for me, but it also gives me the quality of Google's results. In fact, I find myself more and more disliking the fact that Google itself isn't keeping track of things for me automatically.

Now Yahoo's jumped in with great search quality and easy to use "search memory" features as well. For an ordinary searcher, I think it's really compelling. I especially like the simple way someone can make a note right within the search results, plus the ability to have things remembered automatically if the Visited Results feature is enabled.

Ask's new personalization features are compelling in much the same way, to me. So in a matter of just weeks, I find these tools to me now being an essential part of any search engine's offering -- and a nice return for the majors since the last time they were tried, by MSN back in 1999.

What about Google, the most notable of the majors now without them? Google tells me it has no future plans for search memory-style tools to announce at this time. Instead, personalization remains restricted to the Google Personalized Search beta service that alters things based on interest areas and Google's Site Flavored Search, which operates in a somewhat similar manner for publishers.

Want to discuss or comment? Please visit this thread in our forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 26, 2004

Yahoo's Advanced Syntax

Greg Notess reports that several of the "old" Inktomi advanced search prefixes(originurlextension:, stem:, domain:, and others) work at Yahoo.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 22, 2004

Yahoo Drops To 10 Results?

By default, Yahoo has given out 20 results for as long as I can remember. Doing a search today, I only got back only 10 (over at Yahoo UK, it's still 20). If this is a permanent change, it's too bad. I liked that they gave you more variety and depth on the first page, automatically.

I'll be checking on the change. If you've seen the same or have thoughts about it, feel free to comment here: Yahoo! new result layout. If you want more results than 10, use the search preference page at Yahoo to see up to 100 results at a time permanently.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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