Big Data Gets Deeper into Search, Yahoo’s Counting On It.
With Google launching an instantaneous search product in the previous quarter, here’s Yahoo launching its own version as well called Search Direct. Unlike Google, Search Direct gives searchers “answers, not links.” It gives direct access to websites even before a query is completed. Yahoo may not overthrow Google’s reign, but it sure is stepping ahead of Microsoft as the number two spot. A recent report revealed that Microsoft’s Bing ousted Yahoo’s search engine on a global scale.
“Yahoo! content is combined with information from the Web to provide rich answers, not just links, and to give people the option to immediately engage or continue to a traditional search results page.”
This new feature (currently in beta) taps into Yahoo’s unique opportunity to combine content and structured data and to provide a rich search experience. Search Direct predicts search results as fast as a person types, character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond a list of blue links. Search Direct rolls out in a public beta to Yahoo! users across the U.S. today, and will be available in other Yahoo products and markets later this year.
Yahoo Search Direct is currently deployed in beta within United States only, and will expand to other locations later this year. The feature utilizes Yahoo’s ability to combine content and structure data for a rich search experience. Like Google, it completes a query as the person types character by character and generates web pages, not just mere links. For now, it covers top search trends, movies, TV, sports teams and players, weather, local, travel, stocks, and shopping categories. They will be adding popular music and local listing in their future enhancements. Visit search.yahoo.com for a demo.
Search engines are on the race to becoming more accurate and reliable. Google, for example, recognizing the proliferation of spam and content farmers, changed their mechanics for search engine optimization (SEO) in what they so-call Panda update. Content farmers provide low-quality content but crawls on top of the search engine and thus get maximum ad revenue because they play the rules of SEO all too well. The panda update will harm these farmers but reputable websites have nothing to fear.
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