We’ve rolled out some changes to our index with fresh web data and updates to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the last few days. We expect the update will be completed very soon. Throughout this process you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index.

This is the first update after the launch of Dynamic URL Rewriting in Site Explorer. We’ve had millions of URLs rewritten based on your submissions and your sites should have seen smarter crawling from Yahoo! Slurp as a result. You will see further benefits in how your site is represented in the index from this update. Your input improves relevance and coverage for users in search results, particularly in relation to your site.

Thank you for collaborating with us to improve our understanding of your site. If you haven’t yet, login and try out the feature to authenticate your sites.

Keep the feedback coming…

Priyank Garg
Yahoo! Search

Building on our initial announcement of Flickr’s integration into Yahoo! Image Search earlier this summer, we’ve now expanded the integration to the countries, regions and languages listed below. You can now access many Flickr images when doing your Yahoo! Image Search from the following countries:

Asia, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada , Cade (Brazil), Canada (in French), Swiss, Swiss (in French), Swiss (in Italian), Catalan, Germany, Denmark, Espanola, Spain, France, Indonesia, Indonesia (English), India, Italy, Malaysia, Malaysia (English), Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom & Ireland, Vietnam, New Zealand, Philippines (Tagalog), Mexico, and Japan.

With this launch, Flickr metadata like title, tags and comments can be used to surface Flickr results on Yahoo! Image Search results pages, making many of the millions of photographs from the Flickr community available to Yahoo! Image Search users. For example, type in ‘Tower Bridge‘ and the ranking algorithm looks at metadata from the images and determines the rank order for the results.

Of course, these are photos marked public by Flickr users; we’re not showing photos marked as private.

With this expanded integration, users can further discover and explore the world of images. Here’s a snapshot of Flickr images surfacing on the Yahoo! Image Search results page for ‘Tower Bridge’:

In addition to the internationally expanded Flickr/ Yahoo! Image Search integration, we’ve rolled out a new feature called Explorer Bar to enhance the Yahoo! Image Search experience. We introduced the Explorer Bar for searchers who want to discover more by looking at what other users are searching for. Today we have it for entertainment and location-related content, and we plan to expand to other categories in the future.

For example if you search for ‘Harry Potter‘, you find images of him as well as an Explorer Bar showing you a preview of images of other characters you might want to search for.

The same goes for cities. If you’re planning a trip to ‘London‘ and would like to check out some pictures, the Explorer Bar also shows you other interesting places that might strike your fancy.

So the next time you’re looking for an image, check out the new features on Yahoo! Image Search and let us know what you think!

Deepali Tamhane
Product Manager, Yahoo! Multimedia Search

I went to a wedding in Marquette, Michigan a couple of weekends ago. The weather? A beautiful 85 degrees Fahrenheit. The weekend-long celebration? Actually, pretty fun. My date? Yahoo! oneSearch. Yes, Yahoo! oneSearch and I were quite the pair. I color-coordinated my tie and dress shirt with oneSearch’s dress, in my best Casanova move I dipped oneSearch on the dance floor at the reception and oneSearch and I sipped champagne as we toasted the newly weds on their happy nuptials.

Well… no, I didn’t really go to the wedding with Yahoo! oneSearch as my date. I had my good friend Vickie by my side. But I couldn’t have enjoyed the weekend quite as much without my mobile device and Yahoo! oneSearch with me in tow.

Like most wedding weekends that have a number of activities leading up to the big day, I had some downtime in between the rehearsal dinner, cocktail party and ceremony. While I wasn’t catching up with Vickie, drinking wine or prepping for the ceremony, I played around with Yahoo! oneSearch and decided I was going to keep track of how many times I used the service during the weekend, just for kicks.

It was more than I realized.

In a random debate with my fellow wedding-goers, I used Yahoo! oneSearch to prove to them that the pasties I was talking about were not the body-decor they were thinking of. A quick image search for ‘pasties Michigan‘ on Yahoo! oneSearch proved my understanding of them and got me out of trouble with Vickie. Phew.

When Vickie was at the wedding rehearsal, I even found show times for The Simpson’s Movie and was able to sneak away for a couple of hours to catch the hilarious flick with some of my friends. Shhh, don’t tell!

And, perhaps my most practical use of Yahoo! oneSearch was when we were presented with a wine opener dilemma just hours before the wedding banquet. We needed to find some extra ones quickly and get back to the reception in time, so I found a nearby Wal-Mart and saved the day with the necessary vino reinforcements.

After putting it to the test that weekend, I found Yahoo! oneSearch to be easy and helpful for my day-to-day mobile search needs, especially when I needed accurate local information quickly. Recently, our team made some tuning with the local intent of user queries and now the service is more likely to have local search results on the top of the results page. So when you too are presented with a corkage dilemma, you can course-correct just as quickly and efficiently. Check out this search for Yellow Cab in the Mountain View, CA area.

Let us know what your experience has been with one of your weekends and Yahoo! oneSearch. We’re interested in hearing how you found it useful and even some ideas for making it a better resource for you on the go. Drop us a note in the comments below.

Paul Yiu
Yahoo! Search

As mentioned in the May 8, 2007 post, the Yahoo! Travel team has been working on a map-on-map feature which enriches our Yahoo! Maps by overlaying independent map images to add more details and context to our base maps.

Now, that same team has further developed the map-on-map feature into the sharable application called MapMixer. This means that anyone who has a map in .jpeg, .gif, or .png format can now upload their map onto a background of Yahoo! Map and mix it, blend it, or customize it. The app gives users tools to adjust transparency, pin-point chosen locations for accurate overlaying and placement, stretch, rotate, zoom, and pan.

If you’re planning a picnic at the park for a group of friends, you can mix your own map of the park’s amenities to pick the best spot and give directions to it. If you’re a tour guide, you can upload images of your route and key sights. If you are showing the past as it relates to the modern-day, add public domain historical maps.

There are endless uses for MapMixer. Take a look at what others have done to customize Yahoo! Maps on the Featured Maps page, and then try it for yourself.

Congrats to Adam Chang, Nimit Maru, and the Yahoo! Travel team who put this great service together.

Michael Lawless – Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

Yahoo! Small Business just made it easier for customers to submit and authenticate their sites to Yahoo! Site Explorer. Now, all you have to do is make sure that ’sitemap.xml’ is enabled and your site will be submitted to Yahoo! Site Explorer automatically.

With this feature, new stores as well as existing stores with ’sitemap.xml’ enabled will have access to the toolkit inside Site Explorer. Within a few hours of enabling, you’ll be able to locate your indexed pages and the links to your sites, as well as delete pages in the index or rewrite dynamic URLs. To double check if your site was auto-authenticated, take a look in the ‘Source’ column in the ‘My Sites’ page in Site Explorer.

If you’re looking for more information on the Sitemap feature, take a look at Sitemap help from Yahoo! Small Business. You can also read more about this feature on the Yahoo! Stores blog.

Welcome Yahoo! Small Business customers! Let us know how things are working for you in the comments below.

Priyank Garg
Yahoo! Search

If you happen to be the proud owner of a shiny new Mercedes-Benz with Tele Aid, then you should be pleased to hear about our new Send to Car feature, which allows addresses and businesses found on Yahoo! Maps to be sent directly to your Mercedes-Benz vehicle through their new Search & Send program.

Starting today, a new ‘Send to Car’ link joins ‘Send to Phone’ and ‘Send by Email’ in the dropdown menu on Yahoo! Maps, and it’s super easy to use in two ways:

1. Just enter an address or get driving directions on Yahoo! Maps as you normally would. Click the “Send to Car” link, and select which (if more than one) address or addresses you’d like to download to your vehicle. Edit the title of the address if you’re so inclined and finally, enter the email address of your car and hit send
2. Or, you can send business information directly from their popup window when you use “Find a Business on the Map.” Search for businesses by keyword or by name, such as “dry cleaners” or “Pizzeria Uno” and click “Send to Car” on the in-map popup and follow the same instructions above.

Once in your vehicle, simply push the i-button, and the address information will be downloaded directly to your navigation system. You will be prompted to begin routing immediately, or save the address for later use.

One of the best uses for this feature is not only to send yourself addresses to use later, but to have friends and family send you addresses while you’re on the road when you need them, so you don’t have to worry about writing down information as you drive, or pull over to enter addresses yourself.

We were pleased to work with Mercedes-Benz as the first automobile manufacturer in our new Send to Car feature, and we think this new bridge between the comfort of your own keyboard and your in-car nav system is the best of both worlds.

Michael Lawless – Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps