Yahoo has started rolling out some new Search Assist features for its web search boxes. They are present in the search boxes of most Yahoo properties. For example, you can find them on Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, or Yahoo Finance.
“These new features can take you directly to the information you need, whether it is real-time stock quotes or movie trailers,” explains Yahoo Search Senior Product Manager Linda Wang. “You can also get enhanced search suggestions and easily navigate to the Yahoo! property that fits your needs the most.”
The features allow you to quickly get more info about movies, sports, travel destinations, stock prices, etc. For instance, you can type a stock symbol and the Search Assist layer will display real-time stock quotes, links to stock charts, and news about the company. Or you can type an athlete’s name and quickly get news, game log info, scores, schedules, etc.
In addition to these features, Yahoo has also launched the ability for Search Assist to help you navigate to different Yahoo properties, depending on your query. Let’s say you type “mail” in the search box. You will get a link to Yahoo Mail – specifically, your inbox, right in the Search Assist layer. Or you can type “news” or “U.S. News” and get a link to Yahoo News or specifically the U.S. section of Yahoo News.
Finally, Yahoo has added a “smart detection system” to Search Assist, which will take you to Yahoo Image Search or Yahoo News Search for different queries. So if you searched for “obama,” you would get quick links to an “obama” image query and an “obama” news query.
It’s hard to say how long these features will be around if Yahoo’s deal with Microsoft goes through. Bing should be replacing Yahoo search on the back-end. This might be considered a front-end frill that Yahoo keeps around though.
Related Articles:
> Following Study, Yahoo Proud Of Search Assist
