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New Yahoo! Search Interface
I must say that I like the new design and interface that Yahoo! is using for Search.
This morning I was doing a SEO run and my link stats were coming-up blank. I went to see why and, well shucks, everything was different.
Go to http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain%3Awww.google.com+-site%3Awww.google.com&y=Search for this walk-through.
The first thing I noticed was the nice clean two-tone white-gray and blue-gray banner. I was surprised because I've been expecting purple-iciousness. Heck, I even have the purple Yahoo! logo on my desk in the form of a pack of mints,
The next thing I noticed was a down arrow at the bottom of the banner on the left side. When clicked it shows an Ajaxed black box filled with suggestions and 'Search Concepts' in yellow text. I don't think I have seen 'Search Concepts' before. It looks like an attempt to search by context, not just a term. Very cool.
I then had a look at the arrow beside the search box. Advanced Search, Preferences, a line, Advertising Programs and About this Page.
The Advanced search looks the same, except I do not remember the beta Creative Commons search. I have to admit that I do not use Yahoo's advanced search page too often so I may have missed that from earlier.
I thought the placement of the Advertising Programs link was brilliant. Not too in your face, but definitely dangled in front of you like a cat toy.
The preferences have definitely changed. The preferences 'home page' is much cleaner and shorter and you now go to sub-pages to set individual preferences. It's nice to be able to see the preference categories all above the fold and so cleanly organized.
The top corner of the page has a link to the Yahoo! home page, mail and to sign-in...very Google like, but smaller and cleaner.
I have to say that I like the color scheme, layouts and font sizes. Yahoo! has selected a clean updated look and seems to have figured-out that we love bells a whistles behind the veil but that we also want to choose when to access them and not to have everything omnipresent. Yes, I have to say Great job Yahoo!
Look for lots of blog posts and screen shots.
1 Comment
Comments
Actually it is much more than a new interface it is a new algorithm. Good article about it in today's L.A. Times. I'm seeing more relevant results than in the past. My site even shows up in the top three for virtually all my targets SERPS now and I was almost nowhere to be found previously. I did a little playing around and it appears in-bound links are playing a much more significant role. I have a photographer client who had almost no Yahoo rankings and now he ranks #1 for all of his related terms. None of his competitors were building links and Yellow Book and Yellow page results are coming up below his. I don't know if that is an improvement in relevancy but I'm sure my client will be very happy. I see some big SEO firms and SEO training firms have been moved out of their previous top rankings too.