Yahoo! Search
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| Yahoo! Search | |
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 Yahoo! Search |
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| URL | http://search.yahoo.com |
| Type of site | Search Engine |
| Available language(s) | multilingual |
| Owner | Yahoo! |
| Created by | Yahoo! |
Yahoo! Search is a web search engine, owned by Yahoo!, Inc. and is currently the 2nd largest search engine on the web (as defined by a September 2007 Nielsen Netratings report.)
Originally Yahoo! started as a web directory of other websites, organized in a hierarchy, as opposed to a searchable index of pages. Over time, Yahoo! evolved into a full-fledged portal in the late 1990s with eventually a Search interface.
"Yahoo! Search" originally referred to a Yahoo! provided Search interface, which 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.
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[edit] Search Technology Acquisition
Seeking to provide its own search engine results, Yahoo! acquired their own Search technology.
In 2002, it bought Inktomi, a "behind the scenes" or OEM search engine provider, whose results are shown on other companies' web sites and powered Yahoo! in it's earlier days. In 2003, it bought Overture Services, Inc., which owned the AlltheWeb and AltaVista search engines. Initially, even though it owned multiple search engines, it didn't use them on the main Yahoo.com web site, 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 search engine companies it had acquired, with its existing research, and put them into a single search engine. Its new search engine results were included in all of Yahoo!'s sites that had a web search function. It also started to sell its search engine results to other companies, to show on their web sites. Its 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 can automatically suggest and offer related search terms as they are typed.
[edit] Yahoo! Search Blog & Announcements
The team at Yahoo! search frequently blogs about search announcements, features, updates and enhancements. The Yahoo! Search Blog, as is stated provides "A look inside the world of search from the people at Yahoo!". This includes index updates named "Weather Updates" and their recently announced Yahoo! Search Assist feature, which provides real-time query suggestions and related concepts.
[edit] International Presence
Yahoo! Search also provides their Search interface in at least 38 international markets and a variety of available languages. Yahoo! has a presence in Europe, Asia and across the Emerging Markets.
[edit] Search Results
Yahoo! Search indexes and caches 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 provides "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 allows the customization of search results and enabling of certain settings such as: SafeSearch, Language Selection, Number of results, Domain restrictions, etc.
For a Basic and starter guide to Yahoo! Search, they also provide a Search Basics tutorial.
[edit] Search Verticals
Yahoo! Search provides the ability to search across numerous vertical properties outside just the Web at large. These include Images, Video's, Local, Shopping, Yahoo! Answers, Audio, Directory, Jobs, News, Mobile, Travel and various other services as listed on their About Yahoo! Search page.
[edit] See also
[edit] Major Competitors
[edit] External links
- Yahoo! Search
- Yahoo! vs. Google Results diagram
- Nielsen Netratings
- Search Engines: costs vs. benefits Yahoo! loses
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| Exhaustive list of products and services | |
| Advertising | Panama · Search Marketing · Yahoo! Publisher Network |
| Developer Networks/Resources | Yahoo! Gallery · Yahoo! Developer Network |
| Search | blo.gs · Directory · Flickr · Groups · HotJobs · Kelkoo · LAUNCHcast · Maps · Movies · News · Podcasts · Sports · Video · WWW |
| Communication & Publishing | Flickr · del.icio.us · Answers · Mail · GeoCities · Messenger · Voice · Yahoo! 360° · Yahoo! Mash · Mobile · Go · Photos · Pipes · Upcoming · Jumpcut.com · Rivals.com |
| Computer Applications | Widget Engine · Desktop Search · Messenger · Music Jukebox · The All-Seeing Eye · Games · Yahoo! Toolbar |
Annual Revenue:  $6.7 Billion USD (2007) · Employees: 11,400 (2007)Stock Symbol: (NASDAQ: YHOO), (LSE: YAH) · Website: www.yahoo.com |
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