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 Yahoo! Search |
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| URL | search.yahoo.com |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Web search engine |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | Multilingual (40) |
| Owner | Yahoo! |
| Launched | March 1, 1995 |
| Alexa rank |  4 (February 2013[update])[1] |
| Current status | Active |
Yahoo! Search is a web search engine, owned by Yahoo! Inc. and was as of December 2009[update], the 2nd largest search directory on the web by query volume, at 6.42%, after its competitor Google at 85.35% and before Baidu at 3.67%, according to Net Applications.[2]
Yahoo! Search, originally referred to as Yahoo! provided Search interface, would send queries to a searchable index of pages supplemented with its directory of sites. The results were presented to the user under the Yahoo! brand. Originally, none of the actual web crawling and storage/retrieval of data was done by Yahoo! itself. In 2001, the searchable index was powered by Inktomi and later was powered by Google until 2004, when Yahoo! Search became independent.
On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search.[3] All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.[4]
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Search technology acquisition [edit]
Seeking to provide its own search engine results, Yahoo! acquired their own search technology.
In 2002, they bought Inktomi, a "behind the scenes" or OEM search engine provider, whose results are shown on other companies' websites and powered Yahoo! in its earlier days. In 2003, they purchased Overture Services, Inc., which owned the AlltheWeb and AltaVista search engines. Initially, even though Yahoo! owned multiple search engines, they didn't use them on the main yahoo.com website, but kept using Google's search engine for its results.
Starting in 2003, Yahoo! Search became its own web crawler-based search engine, with a reinvented crawler called Yahoo! Slurp. Yahoo! Search combined the capabilities of all the search engine companies they had acquired, with its existing research, and put them into a single search engine. The new search engine results were included in all of Yahoo!'s sites that had a web search function. Yahoo! also started to sell the search engine results to other companies, to show on their own web sites. Their relationship with Google was terminated at that time, with the former partners becoming each other's main competitors.
In October 2007, Yahoo! Search was updated with a more modern appearance in line with the redesigned Yahoo! home page. In addition, Search Assist was added; which provides real-time query suggestions and related concepts as they are typed.
In July 2008, Yahoo! Search announced the introduction of a new service called "Build Your Own Search Service," or BOSS. This service opens the doors for developers to use Yahoo!'s system for indexing information and images and create their own custom search engine.[5]
In July 2009, Yahoo! signed a deal with Microsoft, the result of which was that Yahoo! Search would be powered by Bing. This is now in effect.[3]
Yahoo! Search blog and announcements [edit]
The team at Yahoo! Search frequently blogged about search announcements, features, updates and enhancements. The Yahoo! Search Blog, as stated provided A look inside the world of search from the people at Yahoo!.[6] This included index updates named Weather Updates and their Yahoo! Search Assist feature.
International presence [edit]
Yahoo! Search also provided their search interface in at least 38 international markets and a variety of available languages.[7] Yahoo! has a presence in Europe, Asia and across the Emerging Markets.
Languages [edit]
Search results [edit]
Yahoo! Search indexed and cached the common HTML page formats, as well as several of the more popular file-types, such as PDF, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint, Word documents, RSS/XML and plain text files. For some of these supported file-types, Yahoo! Search provided cached links on their search results allowing for viewing of these file-types in standard HTML.
Using the Advanced Search interface or Preferences settings, Yahoo! Search allowed the customization of search results and enabling of certain settings such as: SafeSearch, Language Selection, Number of results, Domain restrictions, etc.[8]
For a Basic and starter guide to Yahoo! Search, they also provided a Search Basics tutorial.[9]
In 2005, Yahoo! began to provide links to previous versions of pages archived on the Wayback Machine.[10]
In the first week of May 2008, Yahoo! launched a new search mash up called Yahoo! Glue, which is in beta testing.[citation needed]
Selection-based search [edit]
On June 20, 2007, Yahoo! introduced a selection-based search feature called Yahoo! Shortcuts. When activated this selection-based search feature enabled users to invoke search using only their mouse and receive search suggestions in floating windows while remaining on Yahoo! properties such as Yahoo! Mail. This feature was only active on Yahoo web pages or pages within the Yahoo! Publisher Network. Yahoo! Shortcuts required the content-owner to modify the underlying HTML of his or her webpage to call out the specific keywords to be enhanced. The technology for context-aware selection-based search on Yahoo pages was first developed by Reiner Kraft.[11]
SearchScan [edit]
On May 11, 2008, Yahoo! introduced SearchScan. If enabled this add-on/feature enhanced Yahoo! Search by automatically alerting users of viruses, spyware and spam websites.[12]
Search verticals [edit]
Yahoo! Search provided the ability to search across numerous vertical properties outside just the Web at large. These included Images, Videos, Local, Shopping, Yahoo! Answers, Audio, Directory, Jobs, News, Mobile, Travel and various other services as listed on their About Yahoo! Search page.
See also [edit]
- Yahoo! Directory
- Yahoo! Next
- Yahoo! Search BOSS
- Yahoo! SearchMonkey
- List of search engines
- Comparison of web search engines
References [edit]
- ^ "Alexa yahoo traffic results". Alexa. Retrieved 2013-02-01.
- ^ "Search Engine Market Share as reported by Compete, comScore, Hitwise, Net applications, Nielsen Online & StatCounter". antezeta.com. December 20, 2009. Retrieved 2010-12-16.
- ^ a b "Microsoft and Yahoo seal web deal". BBC News. 2009-07-29. Retrieved 2012-11-10.
- ^ When will the change happen? How long will the transition take? Yahoo! Search Help
- ^ "Yahoo! Opens Up Search Technology Infrastructure for Innovative, New Search Experiences, Providing Third Parties with Unprecedented Access, Re-Ranking and Presentation Control of Web Search Results". Yahoo!. July 10, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
- ^ "Yahoo! Search Blog". Ysearchblog.com. Retrieved 2012-11-10.
- ^ "Yahoo! international presence". World.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2012-11-10.
- ^ http://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8
- ^ Search Basics tutorial[dead link]
- ^ Yahoo Cache Now Offers Direct Links to Wayback Machine Search Engine Watch, September 18 2005
- ^ Yahoo! Shortcuts[dead link]
- ^ "Yahoo! SearchScan information page". Tools.search.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2012-11-10.
External links [edit]
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