We’re making Search more intuitive by taking user context and applying it to the search experience. Today we are introducing an enhanced Yahoo! Search Assist, providing suggestions geographically closer to you as you type your query. 

Sitting here in our Yahoo! headquarters at Sunnyvale, if I type “santa” from Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale, California,  I get “santa clara county” as the first suggestion.

If I type the same query from my friend’s place in Santa Barbara, I get “santa barbara” as the first suggestion.

 Here’s another example that commuters in the New York and Pittsburgh metropolitan areas will appreciate: As I type “port au” from the New York area, I get “port authority bus terminal” and suggestions prioritized for New York’s Port Authority.

 But if I’m in the Pittsburgh area, I’ll see more locally relevant suggestions like “pittsburgh port authority” and “port authority of allegheny county.”

Yahoo! Search Assist helps you find what you need with fewer keystrokes by taking into account the location from which you’re searching.

Give this new feature a try and let us know what you think about geo-sensitive search suggestions in the comments section below.

Vivian Lin Dufour                                                                
Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

I’ve heard some innuendo that with Yahoo! Search transitioning certain back-end functions to Microsoft, we are no longer a “search engine.” I find these comments amusing, but a little irresponsible. What it comes down to is that the search industry is not widely understood, so I’d like to take this opportunity to draw a few comparisons with other industries. When groundbreaking new technologies are developed (i.e. chips, cars, smart phones, etc.), most industry players initially build their entire technology stack in-house. As these companies become more successful, and as technology matures, many building blocks of these products are outsourced – even some of the most critical components.

Take a look at Boeing or Airbus aircrafts. They outsource their engines to Rolls Royce, United Technologies, and GE.  But, does that mean that Boeing and Airbus are no longer airline manufacturers? What about the mobile handset business? HTC uses a chip from one company (say Qualcomm), sources its screen from various OEMs, and uses Google Android for its OS. And is HTC a mobile phone company?

People who assume that search is only about indexing, crawling and relevance of web documents are mistaken. First of all, there are hundreds of sources of data other than the web index. Yahoo! Search supplements Microsoft’s web Index with Yahoo!’s own content, content from third party relationships, and content from social networks like Twitter. We still maintain the technology, science, scale and infrastructure required to crawl, index and rank this data – and all in real-time (less than a second).

Beyond that, Yahoo! is investing in many areas that will redefine and reshape search – we are still a search engine, and in a strong second place in this very competitive marketplace. Watch out for amazing stuff coming from this search engine!

Shashi Seth
Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Search Products

Search is evolving to mean more than entering keywords in a text box – at Yahoo! we believe it’s also about finding the right information at the right time. To help people discover information they want online, we’re enhancing and rolling out new search-powered features across the Yahoo! network.  One of these search-powered features is a new module for Yahoo! News, which we are giving you a preview today.

With this module, we’ve begun adding related search content below news stories – we call these modules “Infinite Browse” internally.  We are currently only testing this module with a fraction of visitors, so if you can’t find it on Yahoo! News yet, stay tuned.

This screenshot shows you an example of what we are testing initially – boxes like this appear below articles on Yahoo! News to give you more information on the topic you’re reading about.  With this feature, we’re leveraging our search technology to help people browse and explore things they’re interested in, such as images, videos, news articles, slideshows, and search suggestions – without having to go to a separate web page, type in a query and hit that “search” button.

These modules might look simple, but they harness an array of Yahoo! technologies and search sciences to complement the work of editors at Yahoo! News. In its first week, our internal data indicates that user engagement with this related search information in Yahoo! News is nearly twice the amount we see with similar features. We will be rolling this out to all users as soon as it is ready.

Another Search-powered feature people love is our “Trending Now” lists, which bring trending topics to your attention as you browse across Yahoo!

You can find the Trending Now list on the Yahoo.com homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, omg!, and more. When you click on any of the terms on the Trending Now list, you will find the latest information about a hot topic and discover related content from Yahoo! Search.  For example, if you click on Lily Allen, one of the trending terms today, you’ll see helpful search results along with a list of other trending topics on the left side of the search results page that you can browse.

Lately, we’ve been working to make these lists even more useful by featuring newsworthy topics relevant to the page you’re on (like trending finance topics on Yahoo! Finance), and including the terms we think are most interesting and relevant to you personally.  Click-through rates have more than doubled since we’ve improved and optimized our Trending Now lists using the content optimization technology that powers the “Today Module” of the Yahoo! Homepage.

Keep an eye out for what’s Trending across Yahoo!, and let us know what you think!

Caroline Tsay, Director of Product Management, Yahoo! Search
Marc Davis, Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

We’ve started testing organic (also referred to as algorithmic) and paid search listings from Microsoft for up to 25 percent of Yahoo! Search traffic in the U.S.  The primary change for these tests is that the listings are coming from Microsoft. However, the overall page should look the same as the Yahoo! Search you’re used to – with rich content and unique tools and features from Yahoo!. If you happen to fall into our tests, you might also notice some differences in how we’re displaying select search results due to a variety of product configurations we are testing.

In this screenshot of our tests, the boxed areas of the search results page are coming from Microsoft’s platform, while the rest of the page is still powered by Yahoo! – as we described when our search alliance received clearance earlier this year.

In the coming months, we will also be integrating Microsoft’s mobile organic and paid search listings, so Yahoo! Mobile search fans in the U.S. and Canada will also eventually see Microsoft organic and paid search listings on their phones. And, as with all Yahoo! Search experiences, Yahoo! will continue to innovate and enhance the overall consumer experience around those core listings.

Pending the results of our current testing, we anticipate that our U.S. and Canada organic search listings in both desktop and mobile experiences will be fully powered by the Microsoft platform beginning in the August/September timeframe, and paid search in October.

For more details on the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, check out the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog.

Kartik Ramakrishnan

Vice President, Yahoo! Search Product Operations

We’ve recently enhanced Yahoo! Search Assist to provide near real-time suggestions as you type your query.

You probably already use Yahoo! Search Assist to conduct your searches quickly, but now you can get even fresher suggestions, which will be especially useful when there are recent top news or events related to your search topic. With the new suggestion algorithm we’ve launched, you will see near real-time suggestions to help you easily find the freshest content.

For example, I was wondering which team the Netherlands would be matched with in the World Cup today, so I typed “Netherlands vs.”, and the first suggestion is for today’s game. Clicking on the first suggestion, I was able to see game information right in the search result page.

You can also find near real-time suggestions in Yahoo! News Search. Again, when you type “netherlands” in Yahoo! News Search, you will see today’s match — “netherland vs brazil” as the first suggestion. This functionality helps you find the most timely information quickly.

We hope the near real-time Search Assist feature helps you find the latest information about your query and enhances your search experience. Give it a try on Yahoo! Search and then give us your feedback or ask questions in the comments below.

Linda Wang
Senior Product Manager
Yahoo! Search

Soccer fans around the world will be waving their flags today as the World Cup opens in South Africa — and American enthusiasm for the world’s most popular sport is reaching new heights.  Since the beginning of the month, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in searches for terms like World Cup, FIFA World Cup teams and live soccer score, as well as a nearly 400% jump in the number of users looking for info on the U.S. soccer team.

Individual players are also seeing  a spike in searches, with interest on the rise about jet-setting  Portuguese forward (and fan favorite) Cristiano Ronaldo; Ivory Coast sensation  Didier Drogba; Cameroonian captain Samuel Eto’o; striker Lionel Messi, the pride of Argentina; and American Landon Donovan, whose game-winning goal over Honduras  in 2009 gave his team a place in this year’s tournament.

In the battle of the sexes, men are taking the lead in searching queries so far, with 66% of searches on the term soccer and more than 80% of the searches for “futbol “coming from the owners of XY chromosomes. But where are all these burly futbol fans, anyway? Among the regions leading the U.S. in searches for the term “soccer” on Yahoo! are Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, and Raleigh-Durham. And if the over 700% increase in searches for World Cup soccer TV schedule is any indication, you’ll find them parked in front of their flat screens until the action stops on July 11.

Even before the first ball was dropped, some forward-thinking users were already asking who will win the World Cup? To find out, use the sports shortcut on Yahoo! Search to see real-time scores and everything else you want to know about all the players and teams – on and off the field.

You can also get the latest images from the World Cup and track your favorite players in Yahoo! Image Search.  Yahoo! Video Search brings you coverage of some of the most popular teams and also takes you down memory lane with selected videos from the previous World Cup tournaments.

We’ll have more search trends for you as the World Cup progresses, so be sure to check back and see what’s buzzing on Yahoo! Search.

Mireille Majoor
Yahoo! Search

We at Yahoo! love the search box. In fact, you can find a handy search box at the top of every Yahoo! page – be it Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports or omg! – as well as in our handy Yahoo! Toolbar. But nowadays, Search has evolved to mean so much more than one or two keywords entered into a text box.

Yahoo! has been at the forefront of content discovery since our early days as “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” Today we provide a unique blend of the most popular and most effective types of online discovery – from editorial, communications, and search to newer social sharing. Every day, people are sifting through the massive amount of information on the web and exploring news, videos, images, and other information on Yahoo! Search technology is becoming more critical to helping people find the stuff that interests them most, no matter where they are online. Today, tons of searches can actually be done without ever hitting return on a search box – for example, by checking out our contextual shortcuts for underlined words while you’re perusing the latest news, or using cool new mobile apps.

The industry as a whole is changing rapidly, and as search continues to evolve, so will the measurements used to understand the market. People no longer search to find a list of blue links; they search to find answers in the shortest amount of time possible. We believe that surfacing the right information at the right time is more important than the number of total results delivered or number of traditional queries conducted.

As we push forward with new search features to bring relevant search results to more people in more places, we look forward to talking with folks like comScore and the industry at large about how to measure the new paradigm of search. Our goal is to help evolve measurement standards, definitions and metrics so the industry has what it needs to accurately understand trends in search share across different types of searches and different companies.

What do you think is the best way to measure the success of a search provider – share of queries, share of query type, share of revenue, engagement, consumer loyalty, search sessions per month?  There is no single answer to this question, but I expect that as the industry evolves, we will identify a blend of metrics to better meet the needs of all audiences who are interested in what’s happening throughout the search industry.

Shashi Seth
Senior Vice President of Yahoo! Search Products

As we promised last month, we are launching Shortcuts that give you upcoming schedules for a specific team, group or match. Try searching for “worldcup schedule”, “Slovenia vs US schedule”, “brazil soccer” and “group B schedule” and get the schedule you’re looking for right on the Yahoo! Search results page.

You can easily access scores, photo gallery, new videos, and latest news from these Shortcuts. You can also see the team page and the match page where you can get the stats and the details about each team and match.

Of course, we will keep bringing more videos and news coverage through the general World Cup Shortcut (just go to Yahoo! Search and type “world cup” to see the shortcut). Since its launch less than a month ago, we’ve already seen 150% increase in search volume for World Cup topics, and a 25% increase in engagement with the World Cup shortcut on our Search results pages.

So give the World Cup Schedule shortcuts a try and search for your favorite team, group, or a match.

Yuko Kamae
Yahoo! Search

Back in April, we introduced a new look for Yahoo! News Search in the U.S. market, featuring news source refiners, time refiners, and rich results to help you find what you’re looking for quickly and seamlessly.

We’ve just launched the new Yahoo! News Search page for French, Spanish, German, and Indonesian language users in 11 international markets.

For example, check out the new Yahoo! News Search results page in German for soccer star Michael Ballack, with new refiners on the left side of the page:

This is a part of our effort to focus on the needs of international markets. If you use Yahoo! in French, German, Spanish, or Indonesian, be sure to search for any hot news topics in the enhanced News Search page. We will be rolling out the new Yahoo! News Search page in more global markets so please check back for updates.

Paul Ko
Yahoo! Search

We’ve enhanced search suggestion in Web search for Yahoo! Taiwan (Yahoo! Kimo) and Yahoo! Hong Kong. This feature helps users easily enter queries in traditional Chinese in the search box using Changjie and Cantonese Pinyin, which are language input systems used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, respectively.

Instead of having to switch the language input method from English mode to Chinese mode, taking several clicks, this new search suggestion feature allows users to enter the phonetic representation of a Chinese query while still in English mode. This saves key strokes and makes using Yahoo! Search more convenient for our Chinese-language users.

For example, to search for “Shanghai World’s Fair,” searchers can start typing the Cantonese spelling of the query while in English mode and see search suggestion in traditional Chinese.

In February, we made this enhancement with the Zhuyin system in Taiwan. The Zhuyin and Changjie systems are now available in Search Assist for Yahoo! Taiwan users. The Changjie and Cantonese Pinyin systems are available in Search Assist for Yahoo! Hong Kong users.

With today’s enhancement, we are continuing our focus on the needs of international markets and features that are useful for non-English users.

James Ying, Product Manager, Yahoo! Search