Stan Lee and Breaking News in Yahoo! Search

Category : Yahoo | 217 views | 2008-07-25 18:00:00

Yahoo! Search recently made some significant enhancements for queries related to breaking news. The goal was to improve the freshness and recency of Search and show breaking news articles faster than before.

Here's how we improved things:

Based on the newsworthiness of each query, we're now displaying the News Direct Display (DD) in the most relevant position(s) on SERP
We're also better able to detect queries that are newsworthy, which means we're showing more fresh News DDs than before

This improves the user experience in a few ways. First, because we're better able to detect when a query is about a breaking news topic, we're able to deliver fresher results when it matters most. Second, by displaying News DDs in multiple positions, we can deliver a more relevant search experience for users. For example, if you're an X-Men fan and you search for Stan Lee, you'll find the latest news about his cameo in the upcoming flick. But there's a good chance you might just be looking for background on the superhero comic book creator, so putting the News DD at a slightly lower position makes more sense.

Give it a try by searching for a news topic that's top of mind for you and let us know your thoughts.

Paul Yiu, Product Management, Yahoo! Search
Jean-Francois Crespo, R&D, Yahoo! Search