Yahoo’s BOSS lets you build your own search website
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Let’s face it. No matter how hard Yahoo! tries, it is not surpassing Google anytime soon when it comes to search. Even though Yahoo still holds the number two position, just ahead of Microsoft, it is still years away from what Google has established itself as.
Now, in an effort to try and boost its search-ad business, Yahoo! has announced a free web-service that lets anyone build a search engine website using the results provided by Yahoo! search. Currently in Beta, the free web-service, which is officially titled ‘Yahoo! Search BOSS‘ (Build your Own Search Service), lets developers build custom web products that make use of Yahoo’s Web Search Index. However, using BOSS has it’s own set of advantages. The following chart will give you an idea.
Yahoo! Search BOSS provides the developers with an API which provides results from the Yahoo! Search Index in either XML or JSON format. The developer can then use this data, format or process it using his own algorithm and needs and display the results on his website. An interesting thing to note here is that the service is completely white-label, so the developer does not need to credit Yahoo!. The service is capable of returning results even from Yahoo News Search, Image Search and Yahoo Spell Checker services.
Yahoo! has listed 4 sites that are already using this service.
This move by Yahoo could either risk their search business, or they could seen a huge rise in the usage. Either way, the company has nothing to loose. Microsoft is already behind its life, wanting to buy the giant. Even though Yahoo rejected the deal, Microsoft still hopes to go ahead with the deal if Icahn comes aboard. Yahoo has already gotten into a deal with Google to display Google’s Ads on Yahoo’s site, in return earning upto $800 million every year for four years.
Yahoo! Search BOSS is a product that adheres to Yahoo’s Open Strategy. In the future, Yahoo also plans to launch what is called the ‘BOSS Custom’ which will also let users push data to Yahoo’s servers.
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