Yahoo Search has finally gotten the monkey off of its back, the SearchMonkey that is, as the Yahoo SearchMonkey Gallery and Yahoo Search Customization has launched in public beta to give Yahoo users the options of customizing their search results with applications built by third party publishers.
As posted on the Yahoo Search Blog :
The Gallery is still in beta, but there are already a number of really useful apps included. We expect the number and variety of apps to grow significantly with time.
What kind of applications are available? Well for one, bloggers can develop applications which show ther top 10 latest blog posts in an expandable window under their search results.
Likewise, HowStuffWorks.com is using SearchMonkey to add basic content to their listings within Yahoo Search Results.
In a statement on the Yahoo Search Blog, Director of Product Management Amit Kumar says :
The launch of the Yahoo! Search Gallery is just the first step in making SearchMonkey applications available and easy to use for consumers. This is the first phase of a larger plan to provide opportunities for viral distribution of SearchMonkey apps. We’re continuing to develop new ways to surface and share useful and high-performance applications in users’ search experience and more broadly on the web, so expect more in the near future.
Yahoo SearchMonkey Apps, Marketing & SEO
To put out the fire on any search marketing confusion, SearchMonkey apps do not help the ranking of a web site within Yahoo Search results.
Even though there is no change in rankings, a publisher who builds a SearchMonkey app and shares it with their users, should ideally get a better and more enhanced click thru ratio from those brand loyal users.
Furthermore, all Yahoo users do not see a publisher’s application in the Yahoo results once a publisher creates one.
Instead, the user must select to add the application to their customized search results themselves, either via the new Customize tab in their Yahoo Search panel, or from a publishers site or marketing efforts. Of course, since most people have Yahoo user accounts, publishers can add a “Add us to Yahoo” icon on their web sites, Facebook apps, outbound emails, blog posts or RSS feeds to help accelerate the adoption of their Yahoo SearchMoney Applications.
Yahoo will also be partnering with some distinct partners to feature special chosen applications within their system. Obvious partners may include companies like eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia and other major current Yahoo content partners and online news publications.
By the way, if you’re a developer then checkout the Yahoo SearchMonkey Developer Challenge where the winner can walk away with $10,000.
For further reading, here are some great posts on Yahoo SearchMonkey’s private beta testing from last month from TechCrunch and Search Engine Land.
