For the past few weeks, Major League Baseball has been the only game in town -- and the only Sports Shortcut on Yahoo! Search. But all that has changed. The National Football League is on the horizon, putting an end to the preseason speculation, the glory of last year's Fantasy Football championships and the "Who's now" segments on SportsCenter. To celebrate, we're launching the NFL Sports Shortcuts at Yahoo! Search. For instance, searching for Randy Moss (happy to be a Patriot) or Steven Jackson (sporting a decent pirate mustache) will display the same vital information and quick links you've come to expect. I plan on using the shortcuts to do some quick checks on this year's "sleepers" -- players who surprise everyone with unexpectedly good performances. My pick is...

... D.J. Hackett. He isn't an unknown by any means, but I think he'll do better than his #90 Yahoo! Fantasy suggests.

Please try the NFL Sports Shortcut for yourself and let me know what you think. We have shortcuts for nearly all NFL players and you'll also see a News shortcut when appropriate (is it Tom Brady's kid or not?!).

What's next for Sports shortcuts on Yahoo! Search? I'll give you a hint... it's a chant that has been heard at the Detroit Lions' home games: "LET'S GO RED-WINGS!!!"

Ya-Bing Chu
Yahoo! Search

More than you think, because we've expanded upon the popular narrowing options for restaurants and hotels (try San Diego restaurants or San Diego hotels). Now searches for popular queries around electronics, medical conditions and medications also display narrowing shortcuts on Yahoo! Search.

If you happen to be contemplating your next electronics purchase, I can tell you first-hand that it can be a research-intensive exercise. I was recently tasked with helping select a laptop for my sister who's starting college in the next few weeks. I plugged in the search term 'laptops' and got the bulk of my research underway.

After reading some user reviews and comparing model specs, my sister and I agreed that a MacBook was the best choice for her. She loves it! If you have some back-to-school shopping as well, or just crave a new toy, try searching for 'digital cameras,' 'cell phones' or 'mp3 players.'

Looking to do some research on a medical condition or medications? I recently had a close friend diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I used the narrower to educate myself about the condition and gather helpful information.

I now have a better understanding of common symptoms and treatments after reading up on the latest clinical trials on MedlinePlus. I also found a Yahoo! Group that she can join to connect with others living with the condition. And to get more detailed, I did a search for 'levothyroxine,' a common medication used to treat hypothyroidism, to learn about the possible side effects.

Try searching for 'breast cancer,' 'ALS,' 'Lexapro,' or 'vitamin E' to see more shortcut examples.

We plan to introduce more shortcuts and create more displays like these, so we welcome your ideas. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Carlos Teran
Yahoo! Search

If you haven't been busy at SES in our neck of the woods this week, you might have noticed we've been rolling out fresh updates to our crawl, index and ranking systems -- ones that are relatively significant for webmasters.

In response to feedback from the community, we're reducing our crawling machines by a significant amount with this update, so you might have observed a significant reduction in crawl load from us along with fewer machine IP addresses hitting you over the last few days.

The new crawler continues to improve comprehensiveness and freshness of coverage while also enhancing crawl efficiency, which reduces spurious load on websites.

We had a brief bout of increased crawl load while testing and rolling out updates, like support for 'Dynamic URL Rewriting' in Site Explorer, announced yesterday. Don't fret, though, if you're concerned about seeing an increased load. We've initiated efforts and established policies internally to ensure this doesn't happen, even temporarily, in the future.

Thanks and keep the feedback coming.

Priyank Garg
Yahoo! Search

Please excuse the dramatic start to this post. Between the anticipation of rolling this out and my incessant Harry Potter reading, I couldn't resist.

Once upon a time, on the World Wide Web, all URLs were fixed strings -- static in form. The idea of URL parameters then came along, allowing for database driven sites and session ids in URLs to create personalized experiences for users. At that time, the Web was alive with rich data and experiences. Then came the crawlers, which made it easier for users to navigate through the Web; however, they inevitably battled with dynamic URL parameters and every webmaster had to choose between a dynamic site and search traffic.

Today comes a new wave for search engines with the first-ever Beta launch of 'Dynamic URL Rewriting' in Site Explorer. The new feature provides the ability for site owners to alert Yahoo! of the dynamic parameters in URLs that they'd like Yahoo! to ignore, which we'll then automatically rewrite accordingly. Try this out for all the cases where you'd want to use parameters in your URLs that don't affect the content of your page, but that have other important uses.

How to get there?

• Login to Site Explorer from Yahoo! Search.
• Add to My Sites and then authenticate any sites that you own or manage.
• For any sites that you have authenticated, you'll see a 'Dynamic URLs' tab.
• On this tab you can enter parameters you want us to either remove from URLs or always crawl with a specific value.
• Once you enter the parameter, we'll show you the # of URLs we estimate will be affected.
• After you confirm the action, we'll modify our crawler such that every time we see a URL from your site with that parameter, we'll automatically rewrite it within our system as per your instruction.

So you might wonder what the feature really gives you. Utilizing the 'Dynamic URL Rewriting' feature enables:

• A more efficient crawl of your site, with fewer duplicate URLs being crawled.
• Better and deeper site coverage, as we'll be able to use our crawler capacity to find and index more new content on your site.
• More unique content discovered, as we'll handle more dynamic parameters in your URLs (if you remove the content-neutral dynamic parameters).
• Fewer chances of crawler traps, or web page sets that can cause an infinite number of requests or a poorly constructed crawler to crash.
• Cleaner and easier-to-read URLs displayed in the search results.
• Better site ranking due to reduced fragmentation of links and anchor text to your site's pages.

Looking for more details on when to use URL parameters? Visit the Site Explorer Help page for additional background on the Beta feature to help define and omit what dynamic URLs Yahoo! should ignore.

We're here to address any questions/ needs that you have, so let us know how it works for you.

Priyank Garg
for Lakis, Amit B., Amit S., Jay, Judy, Srikanth, Zheng
Yahoo! Search

When was the last time you suddenly remembered a favorite song and craved to hear a piece of it right away? If you're like me, it happens pretty often.

Now on Yahoo! Audio Search you can play samples of millions of songs. The new inline player provides instant playback right next to the search results. There are no intrusive pop-ups or multiple browser windows to manage -- only a 30-second, uninterrupted instant audio experience. And, there's also a 'Select Preferred Audio Service' feature that helps you link to your favorite audio provider directly from the results page.

From Cliff Richard to Norah Jones, search for your favorite songs, artists, albums, and lyrics and listen to the sample playback instantly. All you need to do is click on the 'Play Sample' button next to the track you want to hear.

For example, you can listen to back-to-back samples of Shakira's most popular songs or all the 2007 Grammy nominees' tracks right from the search results page.

Or perhaps get nostalgic by listening to John Denver's voice or sampling through tracks of ABBA's popular album Voulez-Vous.

You can access Yahoo! Audio Search from www.yahoo.com by selecting the 'Audio' option from the 'more' drop down menu.

This is just the beginning. Over time, we plan to roll out more features on Yahoo! Audio Search and additional song samples, so stay tuned. Try it out and let us know what you think.

Sweta Raghavan
Yahoo! Search, Product Manager

There's a sense of anticipation in the San Jose air. It's summertime and what's hotter than the Fahrenheit (or Celsius) in the Silicon Valley city this time of year? Perhaps it's the influx of high-tech and Internet companies gearing up to attend Search Engine Strategies(SES) at the San Jose Convention Center. August 20th won't just be another Manic Monday, but instead it marks the onset of this four-day conference where attendees will learn the latest in search and search marketing developments and solutions.

Between Yahoo!'s Search and Search Marketing teams, we're participating in a total of 16 panels throughout the four-day event, spanning topics like universal search, personalization, traffic quality, and ad targeting.

Here's where the Yahoo! Search clan will be, but don't forget to refer to your conference agenda to help you maneuver your way through the masses of marketers and seasoned SES alum who'll be there.

Monday, August 20

11:00 a.m. -- 12:30 p.m.
Universal & Blended Vertical Search: Tim Mayer, VP of Product Management

2:00 -- 3:30 p.m.
Personalization, User Data & Search: Tim Mayer, VP of Product Management

Tuesday, August 21

1:30 -- 2:45 p.m.
Images & Search Engines: Cris Pierry, Director of Web Search and Multi-media Search

4:45 -- 6:00 p.m.
Meet The Video Search Engines: Cris Pierry, Director of Web Search and Multi-media Search

Wednesday, August 22

1:30 -- 2:45 p.m.
Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues: Priyank Garg, Director of Product Management

3:15 -- 4:30 p.m.
CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines: Amit Kumar, Sr. Engineering Manager

4:45 -- 6:00 p.m.
Search Engine Q&A; on Links: Sean Suchter, Director of Yahoo! Search Technology

Thursday, August 23

10:45 am -- 12:00 p.m.
Meet The Crawlers: Sean Suchter, Director of Yahoo! Search Technology

There'll be a number of discussions going on, so don't hesitate to stop by. And check out the YSM Blog for additional panels from the YSM team.

Sean Suchter
Yahoo! Search

The team here at Yahoo! Local, the source behind the shortcuts that appear at the top of the search results page when you do searches like "New York, NY restaurants," rolled out some new features today. We've been working on some changes to our Local search capabilities to better utilize the millions of user ratings, reviews and other user-generated content from our community, to ensure their voices are heard loud and clear in your search results. For example, a search for "Romantic French Restaurant, SF," will deliver the following leader board:

There are also new opportunities to offer up your opinion and experiences with people in your community with the new Yahoo! Local. In particular, you can now comment on user reviews in addition to reading other people's and be a part of a vocal and active user community. We hope that the additional opinions and reviews will help make everyday decisions like picking a florist, finding a great day spa and zeroing in on the nearest Starbucks that much easier for you.

You can check out more details on the new features -- ranging from new ways to learn about events to new "My Local" functionality -- over at the Yahoo! Local Blog so head there for more detail.

Try it out yourself, update your Yahoo! Local profile and tell us what you think at the Yahoo! Local Suggestion Board.

Brian Gil
Product Manager, Yahoo! Local

Unless you're a huge sports fanatic, you may find it hard to keep up with all the new players in professional sports. I used to be pretty good at it back when I collected baseball cards, or when I was able to watch news and highlights every night. These days, I don't have the time to track it all, especially with the increased action due to the salary cap, free agency and blockbuster trades. But let's say I wanted to quickly check up on my favorite baseball players -- maybe Ichiro or Dontrelle Willis. The new Sports Shortcut in Yahoo! Search will let me do just that.

Search for Dontrelle Willis, and there's the D-train's personable smile, along with the vital stats. Want to settle a bar bet about his ERA, strikeouts, or even his player number? Done. Need a quick recap of his last performance? Try the Game Log. Want to see when the Marlins are coming to town? Didn't think so ;-) (Try the Scores & Schedule link). You can also click the Photos link to see more images, like action shots.

For you Yahoo! Fantasy Sports owners, you might find the fantasy ranks useful for "heat checks." It looks like Ichiro hasn't been doing well for the last month, but Robinson Cano is burning up the Bronx! There's also a small "Notes" link next to the player's name that Yahoo! Fantasy Sports owners might recognize.

We've also added images to the News Shortcut. So, if you're searching for Barry Bonds breaking the home run record, for example, you'll now see pictures incorporated with the news results.

I hope that you baseball fans find this useful. We've got almost all MLB players (even Aaron bleepin' Boone!). We also plan to roll out the NFL, NBA and NHL as they rotate into season, so stay tuned.

Try it out and let us know what you think.

Ya-Bing Chu
Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

P.S. Yes, I'm a Red Sox fan.

Over the past several months, Yahoo! has been rolling out Search Suggestions to users across Firefox browsers (aka "chrome search" for the geeks among us), Yahoo! Toolbar for Firefox and, most recently, Yahoo.com.

And today, we're expanding Search Suggestions to Yahoo! Toolbar for Internet Explorer. Now, all new downloads include the same ease of use and quick search experience right from the Y! Toolbar for IE.

Sensing a pattern? We really believe that Search Suggestions improves your search experience. By automatically giving you suggestions based on what you've typed (as you're typing), you can get to what you're looking for faster.

We're driving to push it out to all your favorite search boxes. So, if you haven't tried it yet, give it a go and let us know how it's working for you in the comments below. And, as always, if you'd like to bypass the suggestions altogether, you can easily turn it off in Yahoo! Toolbar by going to the menu below the suggestions or in "Toolbar Options" under Settings.

Hua Ai
Product Manager, Yahoo! Toolbar

I often get music artist recommendations from friends. It's one of the quickest, easiest ways to hear about new bands that I might like. But when it comes to deciding if I actually like the music, I subscribe to the Ronald Reagan school of "Trust, but verify." I prefer to get a taste of the artist before handing down my verdict, so it's useful to watch some videos, listen to a few song samples and learn more about the artist. Today, Yahoo! Search rolled out a music artist shortcut feature that makes it faster and easier for me to determine if an artist is up to snuff.

Let's use Feist as an example (a recent recommendation from Kevin, who's posted here before). Entering "Feist" in the search box provides immediate access to the videos, songs and even the official site link (when there is one) -- all from the search results page. There's also quick links to see photos, find lyrics or check the discography ("Albums").

And, if you're just looking for a hit of nostalgia, check out an old music video that you may not have seen on TV. I thought U2's "The Sweetest Thing" video was really amusing (but what's Bono so sorry for?).

Try it for yourself! May I recommend Spoon or Zero 7? Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen have gotten a lot of attention lately. Or, take a trip down memory lane and check out The Rolling Stones or The Ramones.

And while you're at it, here are some of the development team's favorites:

- Ashley Hall: Angels and Airwaves

- Swati Raju: Macy Gray

- Sam Sanchez: Shakira, Bob Marley

- Felicia Jose: Thievery Corporation, Travis

We've got a few thousand artists covered right now and we'll be working hard to expand the list (a lot of music artists just don't have music videos). If your favorite music artist isn't covered, let me know in the comments and I'll investigate.

Ya-Bing Chu
Product Manager, Yahoo! Search

P.S. The first music video I ever saw was "Shout" by Tears for Fears. Before this experience, it had been 23 years since I saw it on MTV. Good times...