local_and_mobile_search-shailesh_bhat.ppt

Local and Mobile Search:Evolving Search Engine Experience

Shailesh Bhat Senior Product Manager

Yahoo! Local

Today’s Online Local Search Experience

28 Million Monthly Users

18,000 City Pages

17 Million Businesses

Reaching the Local Audience

• Yahoo!’s goal is to provide users with instant answers regardless of the entry point

• Local listing entry points on the Yahoo! Network– Yahoo! Local

– Yahoo! Web Search

– Mobile

– Maps and more

• Each entry point is optimized differently but leverage the same core data set

Optimizing for Local Search

• Proactively monitor and verify listings information

• Solicit customer feedback to nurture & manage online reputation

• Include details on special services and products carried– “copper re-piping” more valuable and

easier to rank for than “plumbers”

Source: ComScore qSearch, March 2008.

+76%

+23% CAGR

Local Searches

The Rise of Local Searching

Web Search today

Limited choice

Limited personalization

Limited visibility

Limited influence

Limited innovation

“Must Buy”

Local Search is Evolving within Web search

SearchMonkey is powering this evolution

• Publishers collaborate

• Meaning behind the link

• Richer experience

• Relevant and personal

• Faster task completion

Monkey parts leads to richer experience

Task linksTask links

Structured dataStructured data SharingSharing

MediaMedia User controlUser control

SearchMonkey: How Does it Work?

Index

Acme.com’s Web Pages

Acme.com’sdatabase

DataRSS feed

RDF/Microformat Markup

Site owners/publishers share structured data with Yahoo!

Site owners & third-party developers build SearchMonkey apps

Consumers customize their search experience with Enhanced Results or Infobars

1

2

3

Page Extraction

Web Services

Who is already there?

Where to find them

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Answering Trivia Questions

Finding New Mobile Websites

Ringtones, Games & Graphics

Making Shopping & Price Comparisons

Local Movies

Checking on Flight Info

Nearby Restaurants & Stores

Directory Listings

Maps & Directions

Local Information in High Demand on Mobile Devices

Source: MMA Mobile Search Consumer Insight Report, August 2006

Mobile as an entry point for Local Information

Local Information usage (% of users)

2007 2008

Maps or directions 10.8 17.6

Products or services in their local area 9.8 15.6

Products or services outside their local area

6.4 14.3

Movies or other entertainment 8.2 13.7

Connected with a social networking site

3.4 9.6

Source: Mobile Market View, Nov 2008, The Kelsey Group

Y! oneSearch – The Mobile Starting Point

• Y! oneSearch is the exclusive or preferred search service with more than 60 mobile operators globally, covering over 800M consumers under carrier contract– Exclusive search service for AT&T in the U.S. on MediaNet

• Accessing Yahoo! OneSearch– Yahoo! Mobile Homepage – over 24 million unique visitors per

month in the U.S. Accessible through any mobile browser http://m.yahoo.com

– Yahoo! Go – runs on over 280 devices in 19 countries– Yahoo! oneSearch with Voice – downloadable client that allows

you to search for anything with the power of voice– Yahoo! oneSearch Shortcut for Nokia – downloadable idle

screen search client; includes voice integration and search assist

– Yahoo! SMS Search – Text query to 92466 (spells YAHOO)

Yahoo! oneSearch Offers Online Ease-of Use

A hungry person in San Francisco enters…

pizza

http://m.yahoo.com

Y! oneSearch Local Listings – Detailed Results

Relevancy & Accuracy is Key

• Mobile search queries show high level of local intent, though not always explicitly– categories like ‘movies’, ‘business listings’, ‘travel’, ‘weather’ are

implicitly local in nature, though user may not include location

• Mobile use-case is different than PC search– Seeking Answers, instead of weblinks

• Mobile local search multiplies the need for strong fundamentals:– Comprehensiveness– Depth– Accuracy– Relevance

“Get me lost once and you’ve lost me forever”

Actionables

• Monitor your online content and reputation across top local search engines and data sources

• Enrich listings with details, to help match multi-term queries and provide ‘answers’ in the mobile world

• Leverage SearchMonkey to assert your influence on a rich experience

Learn more and get started

• Search Gallery http://gallery.search.yahoo.com/

• SearchMonkey development http://developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/

• Best practiceshttp://l.yimg.com/a/i/ydn/searchmonkey/searchmonkey-best-practices.pdf

Thank You

Shailesh Bhatshailesh@yahoo-inc.com