One of the items I work on is Yahoo! Shortcuts. A Yahoo! Shortcut is a quick way to use web search to get to the information you want, ideally faster than combing through the web results. Shortcuts results appear automatically when they're relevant to your search and link to content on Yahoo! or across the web. That's a bit of an awkward description, so let's get a better definition and see a shortcut in action.

A web query for "define shortcut" gives The American Heritage Dictionary's definition of "shortcut" as "A more direct route than the customary one" in the Yahoo! Shortcut section (look for the red "Y!" next to it near the top of the web search results page. The pattern of "define x" can be used to get definitions, as is pretty obvious, aka apparent, clear, evident - you can get a whole list of synonyms by using "synonym obvious".

Back to the definition of "a more direct route", there are a number of patterns or key words you can use to get results from other areas of Yahoo!. Looking at the tabs across the top of the search box:

• Images: "photos" or "pictures" in a web query will give 4 images and a link to all Yahoo! Image Search results. Example: "puppy pictures" (a favorite of my wife)
• Video: "video" or "videos" in the query gives a link to all Yahoo! Video Search results. Example: "brad pitt videos" (another favorite of my wife)
• Directory: some terms will trigger links to the Yahoo! Directory's pages of categorized sites. Example: "History"
• Local: a pattern of [city] [state] [business name / type] will give 3 results from Yahoo! Local plus a link to all results. Example: "San Francisco ca plumbers"
• News: "news" in the query will gives three news headlines via Yahoo! News and a link to all results. Example: "Iraq news"
• Products: various products or categories of products queries will give links to Yahoo! Shopping. Example: "digital cameras", "canon powershot"

Many people also end up using the Shortcuts for navigation. For example, "Pool" is used by many to quickly get to Pool on Yahoo! Games. Some savvy users just put an "!" on the end web queries that are Yahoo! properties to be taken straight there. "Mail!" will take you to Yahoo! Mail, "music!" to Yahoo! Music, "maps!" goes to Yahoo! Maps, and so on. (Ok, you smart people will point out that for maps you can just do a web search for an address and get a map at the top of the page, such as "550 Geary St, San Francisco, CA").

Lastly, with over 30 shortcuts on web search, there's plenty of ways to string them together to get things done faster. My wife will be headed to Las Vegas with some friends next month (yes, it is a bachelorette party and no, I'm not invited). She can use shortcuts to book her flight, look at prices and reviews for hotels in the area or a specific one, and line up a limo. When it's time to go, she can check the weather, get airport info, see if her flight is on time, check traffic, and see where to get cheap gas on the way to the airport.

Take a look at the web search shortcuts and see how they can help you find things faster. You can always click on the Shortcuts link on search.yahoo.com, our dedicated search home page, or on the top right of the web search results page, or by clicking the About link that's at the bottom of every shortcut. For access while on the go, take a look at the shortcuts for mobile devices.

Adam Durfee
Product Manager, Yahoo! Search