ArticleSnatch Blog

You are browsing the archives of php.

Yahoo announced today the general public availability of their SearchMonkey program. This is a program that has been in beta testing with limited partners. It allows the partner to provide Yahoo with structured data that provides advanced information about a web page. This information is then used by Yahoo to influence the presentation of organic search listing results for that page.

This is a very powerful concept in that a modified search listing can surely influence click through rates. Imagine your search listing with an image and several related links built in. Let’s look at a quick example:

You can see additional examples in my interview with Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins. The interview was published this past Monday and focuses on SearchMonkey.

The basic process for creating SearchMonkey applications is straightforward. SearchMonkey supports multiple formats, including microformats, RDFa, eRDF, XML feeds, and APIs such as OpenSearch, so publishers have many options for exposing the data.

In addition, developers can build sophisticated applications into the search results. An example of this is the notion of an InfoBar. With an InfoBar, you can actually put an active control in your search listing result. When users click on the control, you mini application will run and can present additional data that displays inline right on the Yahoo search results page.

Here is what it looks like:

The InfoBar provides a very powerful mechanism for managing complex interactions with users right on the Yahoo search results screen. This should have significant value from a branding and click through perspective.

Here is a summary of the development process:

1. Application Type – Decide what type of app you want to build (Enhanced Result or Infobar) and enter basic info such as application name, description, and icon.
2. Trigger URLs – Decide the URL patterns that will trigger your app.
3. Data Services – Data Services are the structured data on which SearchMonkey apps are based. They can be created using data available in the Yahoo! Search index (via data feeds or page mark-up such as microformats or RDF) or by using APIs or page extraction.
4. Appearance - Use PHP to configure how structured data should appear in the application.

Commentary

Note step 2, the one in which your application gets activated. A critical part of the program will be determining when and where you would like your enhanced result to show up.

One key element of the program is that creating an enhanced result, or an InfoBar, does not mean that all users will be exposed to them. Users need to enable the enhanced listings on a publisher by publisher basis. In addition, users can change their minds later and remove your SearchMonkey application from their results.

I spoke to Amit Kumar, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, this past Tuesday, and he indicated that in the future that select SearchMonkey applications may get exposed to all comers. Applications that are adopted by lots of users, and not remove by many at all would be more likely to make this leap to general availability. This however, is not a certainty.

Amit also told me that Yahoo is going to setup a Gallery of such applications for users. This will be a place where the user can go to select an application and enable it. It will be interesting to see how much exposure the Gallery gets. This will play a critical role in the rate of adoption of these types of results. The publisher can, of course, promote their own application, and try to drive people to sign up for it.

Another thing that Amit emphasized during our conversation was that the effort level for developers to engage with SearchMonkey is quite low. The platform makes it really easy for them to engage. This could play a critical role in broadening adoption.

One thing I learned in my interview with Andrew, and also from his presentation at SES New York, is that building SearchMonkey applications will not help you improve your rankings. The program is not intended to be used for that purpose.

Personally, I’d like to see a stronger move towards exposing some of the applications to all users. This maybe a difficult thing to implement at some level, and it makes it far more susceptible to spam. But it would certainly accelerate the exposure of these types of applications to the general public.

The early action (in terms of users) will likely be driven by early adopters. Then we will need to see how widely it penetrates the market, and how aggressively Yahoo pushes it forward.

That said, this is exciting stuff. I have long been a believer that search engines should get more information from the publishers, in a structured format. Yahoo has taken a big step in that direction with this program.

Recently, Yahoo announced SearchMonkey, which will allow developers access to open source to create applications for search results. Well, today is the day that developers finally get their hands on the tools to make that happen.

There are two types of applications developers can build using SearchMonkey – Enhanced Results and Infobars.

• Enhanced Results take the current standard results and give them a makeover with a richer display. Links to results must remain intact (don’t mess with those search results!).
• Infobars will appear below search results and can display information such as metadata about the result, related links or content, or links for user actions (i.e. adding a movie to a Netflix queue).

The process for building SearchMonkey applications is very straightforward:

1. Application Type – Decide what type of app you want to build (Enhanced Result or Infobar) and enter basic info such as application name, description, and icon.

2. Trigger URLs – Decide the URL patterns that will trigger your app. For example, for the Enhanced Result above, the pattern would be “acmemovies.com/*”

3. Data Services – Data Services are the structured data on which SearchMonkey apps are based. They can be created using data available in the Yahoo! Search index (via data feeds or page mark-up such as microformats or RDF) or by using APIs or page extraction.

4. Appearance - Use PHP to configure how structured data should appear in the application.

Need incentive? How does a contest with $10,000 in prizes? Submit your application by June 14th to enter. The contest has four categories: Best Enhanced Result, Best Infobar, Most Innovative Use of Structured Data, Best Data Service, and Grand Prize (best over all categories).

And if you’re in the Bay Area, catch the SearchMonkey Launch Party tonight at Yahoo’s Headquarters in Sunnyvale.

63 Best practice optimize PHP code performance
Today i am searching solutions for any tips and tricks about best practice to optimize PHP code performances and i found some of useful articles which you may interested with.
One of them is an old post by Reinhold Webber, a good list of consideration
(tags: php coding programming webdesign [...]

Treating Muscle Cramps With Creatine Monohydrate Posted By : EMMANUEL CHAVEZ: This article is about.. http://tinyurl.com/2v8e4q #
Hard Money in A Changing Economy Posted By : Leonard Rosen: This article is about hard money in a c.. http://tinyurl.com/yr3v6h #
Links for 2007-11-29 [del.icio.us]:
BlogMad Blog Trafficking service with del.icio.us integration! http://tinyurl.com/288q9x #
What are the Causes of Rheumatoid Arthritis? [...]

Links for 2007-11-28 [del.icio.us]:
PHP VIDEO TUTORIALS FOR WEB DESIGNERS KILLER PHP - FOR WEB DE.. http://tinyurl.com/yrmwwj #
New Article - How To Build Your Mailing List As Quickly As Possible Posted By : : Gold.. http://tinyurl.com/2s9pdo #
New Article - How To Build Your Network Via The Classifieds Without Losing Your Pants .. http://tinyurl.com/2rdjhn #
New Article - [...]

PHP VIDEO TUTORIALS FOR WEB DESIGNERS
KILLER PHP - FOR WEB DESIGNERS
This is a beginners website/course on PHP created for web designers who have little to no programming experience.
Where most other PHP tutorials and books assume you know programming (or at least, that’s what it seems
(tags: php web-design php-programming php-help php-tutorial php-video)

Rate this: 2.5

Techlicious.tv: Top 8 Open Source CMS Platforms
Nice list of open source CMS systems.
(tags: joomla wordpress droopl xoops cms open-source-cms pligg)

PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner
Nice 15 parts of php tutorial straight from Zend.
(tags: php zend soap learn-php php-tutorial php-101 php-operators)

Rate this: 2.5

Protolize.org - Essential web tools in one place
Great selection of web tools and handy resources for javascript, css, ajax, php, ruby, flash, etc.
(tags: java javascript ajax php ruby flash cms web-tools web-design)

Rate this: 2.5

I Got 99 Problems, but Developing Ain’t One - Software Developer
In the words of the rapper/entrepreneur and occasional developer Jay-Z, “If you got developing problems I feel bad for you son….”
A Web developer’s life is hard enough without having to go on the hunt for good developing resources. To help you take a
(tags: ajax web-design [...]

Most of you read about how ArticleSnatch.com was kicked off of Hostgator hosting because of the database load. As a result we found a clustered hosting environment called Mosso (a RackSpace spin off). Moving things over has of course not been without its hitches but overall I think its been ok.
One of the [...]