Yahoo!7 is about to release version 1.0 of Yahoo! Alpha beta - a new service that allows users to create personalized search engine homepage using an intuitive drag-n-drop interface.
Unlike Google Custom Search engine which is closely tied to Google Web Search, Yahoo! Alpha shows search results from various Yahoo! or third-party services on the same page.
The services currently available are Yahoo! Web search, Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube but you can build your own search modules as long as they provide search results are available in the form of RSS feeds.
There's also a special module called "Sponsored Results" that displays text ads based on your search query. This gives a strong hint that Yahoo! may be planning to share ad revenue with users just like Google's CSE.
Yahoo! Alpha is still in beta but looks very promising. You can think of Yahoo! Alpha as a start-page like Netvibes or PageFlakes where every widget is related to search.
Yahoo! Alpha | Example Search Page [H/T J]
Reader Comments
Isn't this more a competition to Google Personalised home page than to the Google Custom Search Engine?
Written on 4/4/07 6:47 PM
More innovative visually than Google Custom Search though lacking in the customizability and cooperation features of Google.
Written on 4/4/07 8:45 PM
Is it just me or is there no RSS feed being published for these searches? Of course they are taking in feeds for custom indexes, but no feeds available for results :(
Written on 4/4/07 9:32 PM
hi amit i have a doubt how did u put the search engine on the top plz help
Written on 4/4/07 10:23 PM
Yahoo launched a custom search builder 8 months ago, 2 months before Google launched their custom search service.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060807-130207
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/53855.html
Written on 5/4/07 5:39 AM
great news for me and Thank You!
Written on 5/4/07 9:25 AM
The UI is similar to A9's custom searches. A9 offers hundreds of custom searches and allows anyone to create their own module. However, it's only for personalisation you can't actually publish your A9 interface, though hopefully Amazon will change that.
Written on 5/4/07 4:50 PM
nice...i hope it gets more robust. but they gotta spell "customise" properly first I think down the bottom.
Written on 4/5/07 8:11 PM