Yahoo looks for "SearchMonkey" salvation

Despite a hostile takeover bid from Microsoft and a dominate Google, Yahoo is still plugging away at refining search.

According to a TechCrunch report, Yahoo plans to open up its search platform to third parties to enhance the search experience. Officially known as Open Search Platform, the project is often referred to by its codename: SearchMonkey.

The new program will allow outsiders to modify Yahoo search results by adding images, structured data and additional deep links.

Amit Kumar, who runs the SearchMonkey project for Yahoo, likened the product to Greasemonkey, a Firefox application that lets users see modified versions of websites.

The altered results are expected to contain a little more information than the current link by including extra text from the website. Yelp, one of Yahoo's launch partners, has included photos, review information and contact information for various local businesses featured on the site.

 

Comments

John Kaduwanema
John Kaduwanema February 27, 2008 at 8:07 AM

If it worked it would be brilliant. MSN could learn from them. I get so frustrated when trying to identify inbound links from MSN because they simply have no operator to achieve this.