Yahoo announced with much fanfare at the SMX Santa Clara the launch of their “Search Monkey.” It is an open source of tools that can be used by searchers and website publishers to enhance search results.
Wait a minute….where did I hear this one before… was it May 2006?
…aaah! Google Co-op.
So what does the Yahoo Search Monkey do for you? Click on the image below to view an example.
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Website Publishers: You can subscribe to this new service, but Yahoo decides when to display your content in this format on the search results page. With Google Co-op, you pick the keywords that will result in this enhanced listing.
Searchers: This feature will allow you to “opt in” to see the enhanced results. Whereas Google Co-op displays enhanced results based on your search queries, you will only see the enhanced listings on Yahoo when Yahoo wants you to see them.
What are the odds of Yahoo making good on a failed Google product? I would say slim to none. Seasoned search marketers see this primarily as an attempt by Yahoo to gather search behavior data for their own purposes.
