The Search Monkey Is Loose!
by Alex WillemsmaToday Yahoo! announced that their developer platform “SearchMonkey” is open to developers. SearchMonkey allows developers to write applications that will provide users with custom search results based on RDF data.
Put simply, RDF is a way of communicating data about your website or business in a way that computers understand. This can be anything from who maintains your website and when it was last updated to your store address and hours, to movie reviews. This is your chance to provide searchers with extra data about your site.
It’s true that Yahoo isn’t Google, and that only people searching Yahoo! using these customized applications will be able to see your data, BUT this is still a tremendous opportunity. Yahoo may be the first big player to start paying attention to RDF data in a big way, but it is far from the last. Google is exploring RDF data too through it’s Google Base program.
If you want to jump ahead in the next generation of search results, this is your chance. Usually search engines don’t put the content of the search results in the hands of developers, but now they have. If you don’t take advantage of it, be sure your competitors will!
If you want to make use of RDF data to describe your business but don’t know where to start, please contact us about creating an RDF profile or application for your site that is compatible with the new Yahoo! SearchMonkey.
