(Logging in from BookLand with more news…) Yahoo has tweaked its search page….click on the gif at the left for a larger shot…this will fully populate Yahoo’s servers by later this week, I’m told. The main changes: slightly muted colors, slightly cleaner design, and the “Related” searches have been moved and renamed “Also try…” This feature (which is not a new idea, but still, this is Yahoo…) was found to be very valuable but underutilized in its previous form. I think it’s a neat feature, it adds another beat to the search process – rather like the “Did you mean?” approach in spellchecking. It’s based on analysis of logfiles for possibly related searches.
According to the PR folk from whom this tip came, “This tool helps identify what the user intention is when they are searching and provides suggested search query terms to assist the searcher when he/she isn’t exactly sure how to best phrase their query. This illustrates a crucial reason why Yahoo redesigned these pages, to get closer to what the searcher’s intent is, and to provide better search results that are more relevant and comprehensive through enhanced presentation.”
I’m also told that Windows users can see the new interface by clicking on the link above the “web” icon in Yahoo Search. I can’t see it, of course, as I’m a non-conforming Mac Safari guy (and for some odd reason Firefox is crashing on my new machine…)
I note that the PR folks are playing to my weakness for anything in which user intent is seen as currency. Time will tell if they’ve done a good job on relevance and UI….
Update: Yahoo has given me a new URL that shows the new UI: http://new.search.yahoo.com/…
All in all you’ve got to give credit to MSFT & Yahoo holding back releases for your vacation period (is this a first for you John, well twins I mean !!)
I spent all day sifting through the headlines and for what……nothing that wasn
Google and now Yahoo moving “Web, Images, Groups, etc.” tabs/links to above the search box is a step backward, imo.
For a more sophisticated implementation of “related search” features, try out Scirus (http://www.scirus.com), Elsevier’s scientific Web search engine. It does a nice job of exposing the sometimes byzantine controlled vocabularies typically used in science and medical journals.
Yahoo places the paid websites above the normal search results, it’s fairly annoying.