Yahoo! launches BOSS: Build Your Own Search Service

by Brad Linder Jul 10th 2008

If you've always wanted to build a search engine, but didn't have the resources to index the entire web and compete with the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, now's your chance. Yahoo! is opening up its search service, allowing anyone to build a search engine based on Yahoo! technology. Yahoo! has offered a search API for a while, but the new Build Your Own Search Service or BOSS program is different in a few key ways:

You can re-rank search results and blend them into other content on a web page.
There are no limits on the number of queries per day
There's no requirement to include Yahoo! branding
BOSS search results can be mashed up with results from other data sources

Yahoo! is offering access to its web, news, and image search engines. More areas, such as video may be coming soon. Eventually Yahoo! will be rolling out a monetization plan that will allow BOSS partners to include ads on their sites and presumably split the revenue with Yahoo!

The company has announced several launch partners, including Hakia, Me.dium, Daylife To-Go, and Cluuz.

Will the move help put Yahoo! on more computer screens than industry giant Google? It's hard to say. Google offers the ability to create search engine options, but they're not nearly as open or flexible as BOSS.

Tags: boss, cluuz, daylife-to-go, hakia, me.dium, search, yahoo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ray Harvard said 7:54AM on 7-18-2008

I wonder how similar BOSS is to Google's Gdata API, http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/basics.html ?

Ray Harvard
http://www.rayharvard.com

charlie said 2:59PM on 8-25-2008

its good but i want to get in to a email adress now

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