Yahoo! Vertical Lens is part of the Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) platform, and allows developers to create site search engines that go beyond Google's plug'n'play offering. Yahoo!'s launch partner for the initiative is technology blog TechCrunch, who are now using Vertical Lens for their site search.
Among the features that the new product offers are:
- Real-time indexing of proprietary content - When new blog posts or comments are added to the site, the search index updates almost immediately to reflect those changes. (Google is pretty good at keeping on top of site changes as well, so not much new here.)
- Customized ranking - BOSS is all about customizing Yahoo! search results, so Vertical Lens allows sites to find tune the algorithm to fit their audience and user experience.
- Structured search - Maybe the coolest aspect of the new Vertical Lens is that it supports faceted refinement of searches. For TechCrunch, their new search engine allows users to narrow query results by author, number of comments, blog category, or date, for example.
- Blending Web with proprietary content in a single search display - Vertical Lens can search both site and web content and blend results together in a single display.
Article by: Josh Catone
Source : SitepointInvite your mail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces. It's easy! Try it!