Abhinav Lal

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Posted on 01-04-2011

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Yahoo!, as ever, is trying to reassert its long lost share of the global search market. As a search, mail, and news portal, it has been and continues to be a very popular choice in India, with millions still using it as their primary web resource. Yahoo! Labs has now announced it will be launching a new search portal in India in the second half of this year, called Search Direct.

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Search Direct will incorporate many new features, including a Google Instant-like autosuggestion that will dynamically display different result categories and possibilities. Explaining the need for such a feature, Prabhakar Raghavan, the head of Yahoo! Labs, said: “Users do not come to a search engine with just search strings. They expect some useful information. For one, if you type Spiderman, you may specifically be looking for reviews on the film, film tickets, pictures or news.”

The idea of Search Direct is apparently to provide answers, and not just links. The answers, according to Yahoo!, are better found when you combine Instant search features with ‘vertical-search intents’ or result categories. It will supposedly be especially useful in entertainment and shopping searches. Trending searches of the moment are also shown.

According to a Yahoo! support page introducing Search Direct, which has already been launched in the U.S., the new feature is “the next step in offering answers to user's search queries. Search Direct provides users current, relevant content, improved suggestions, a rich display format, and displays answers instantly to the user as they type the search query in the search box. Search Direct contributes to users finding answers and navigating the web using fewer keystrokes.”

Apart from autosuggesting result categories, Search Direct incorporates content optimisation features that will enable users to see content according to their preferences, and previous clicks. As seen above, the autosuggested categories and content are dynamically generated in a tray below the search window, and users can click through directly to one of these, or, continue with their original typed search query. For now, the feature will only be available in English.

Yahoo! is reportedly also working on a ‘Status’ message feature, allowing for collaboration within a small user group. You can try Search Direct here, and check out the introductory video below: