Pete FreitagYahoo!'s new Y!Q Service
Yahoo has just launched a service called Y!Q that allows you to embed a search related info button on your web site.
The way it works is kind of dumb however. Your required to place some content in a div with the class ypcontext, then embed a form in your page, with the same content in a hidden input field. Here's an example of what it does:
The Y!Q service should be much easier to use. They should be using something like Google AdWords technology to generate the results. At the very least I'd expect that they don't require me to put the content on my page twice.
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Tweet Follow @pfreitagYahoo!'s new Y!Q Service was first published on February 03, 2005.
Comments
I am not sure how I feel about Y!Q, first off I have seen this done only its more automatic on a smaller startup stie. I am not quite sure why yahoo didnt try to copy their method. Y!Q just seems like more of the same keyword searching only masked by highlighting. I dont get what is so new about this approach.
by zak on 02/04/2005 at 6:55:58 PM UTC
Umm, yeah, I think Y!Q is actually harder to use. You have to refine searches after highlighting stuff. It is really hard to get good info. I mean, isn't it supposed to already understand what I'm looking for? Don't other companies do this and are more successful?
by Adam on 02/04/2005 at 6:57:26 PM UTC
You don't even see the highlight on your page because your content background is already white.
Now, I do have to add the content twice, once in the form field and once in the body. But of course I had to make sure all html was stripped out of the content before I put it in the form lest the form render broken.
If you want to see how the context highlights you can check out my page at http://blog.rawlinson.us - though I cheat a little. I wrap the whole story in the ypcontext class, but only pass an excerpt into the context search form.