Yahoo has begun testing Glue Pages, a new way to present search results that take advantage of its background as an Internet portal.
Glue Pages, which the company began offering in beta form to Yahoo search users in India, combine traditional search results with a wealth of other related information. Traditional search results appear in a strip on the left side of the page, while other modules appear that spotlight sponsored links, recipes, medical information, Wikipedia entries, stock charts, Flickr images, train schedules, restaurant lists, news, and even Google blog search results.
Yahoo Glue Pages build a mini-portal around search results. It's in beta in India.
(Credit: Yahoo)
Yahoo's Indian team developed the feature and so far there are no plans to bring it to the United States or other areas, said spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly.
"We encourage other regions to develop things that work for their regions," Kelly said. "If it does get traction, potentially something like it could launch in the United States."
Yahoo pioneered Internet portals, all-purpose sites where people can find everything they need, but Google found a much stronger business model through an effective search engine that presents bare bones results with text ads alongside.
However, Yahoo continues to lose search share. In March the gap widened a bit more, with 59.8 percent of US queries at Google and 21.3 percent at Yahoo, according to ComScore.
Despite this the display ads on Yahoo's portal present an alternative to its larger competitor, using graphics to tout brand names and logos, whereas Google's cash engine is built on text ads today.
Glue Pages have prominent sponsorship opportunities, though not yet display ad opportunities, Kelly said, adding that Glue pages launched with the ability to sponsor travel pages, but now all modules can be sponsored.
Yahoo is also making an attempt to be more competitive with Google in its efforts to move to "universal search." Google today sometimes mixes other information such as photos alongside the traditional list of links in its search results, part of an effort to expand to provide a broader answer to what people are looking for.
Glue Pages will also dovetail with the Y!OS, aka Yahoo Open Strategy, in an effort to more tightly wire together its Web site while opening it up to outside programmers as a foundation.
"Glue will leverage the Yahoo application platform...in coming months," Kelly said, though today it doesn't yet. "We will eventually open it up, so developers could develop customised search results for Glue Pages the way we're doing it for Search Monkey."
Yahoo also has plans to implement a vertical search capability, in which search results are tailored for a specific domain such as health. Vertical search sites aren't as plentiful in India than in the United States, Kelly said, so Glue Pages can provide a more tailored entry point to the Internet.
There's no date set yet for the feature coming out of beta testing, Kelly said.
Yahoo!7 has had a similar site to this in Australia for quite some time now - Alpha (beta).
http://au.alpha.yahoo.com