Yahoo Introduces Instant-Like Search Direct Box

Yahoo may be officially out of the search game, but it's not giving up on serving its users a great search experience. Evidence to that is the new Search Direct box which is a mixture of the existing Search Assist and Google Instant.

Yahoo says it's something different though, the first big breakthrough of the decade in search, in fact, since it provides users with direct answers rather than search results. Even though they're technically search results, just mostly limited to Yahoo properties.

"Today we announced Search Direct, or as I like to call it, the Search Box of Awesome. Search Direct is the first fundamental shift in search in more than a decade," Yahoo's Ethan Batraski wrote.

"For the first time, driving users to a results page filled with an overwhelming number of links is not the end game. We believe Search Direct will be the simplest and fastest way to find answers, not links," he added.

If you really need a Google comparison, it's a mixture of the One Box, giving you direct answers, and Instant, serving them as you type. But it is an interesting tool and one that could actually do what Yahoo set out to do.

The idea is to bypass the search results page, which, despite the best technology, is not always helpful, and instead provide answers or at least direct you towards a relevant search.

Depending on what you're looking for, Yahoo may provide info from its network of sites, things like sports results, weather, stock market data and so on.

If it can't find anything useful on its sites or a direct answer, Search Direct serves you just three search results. The interesting thing is, the three links are actually the top result for the first three search suggestions, not for the same search.

Yahoo says this is just a beta release and the tool will be fine tweaked in the future. It sounds useful enough and it's good to see that Yahoo is still doing something in search, like it promised. It's up to the users now to see if Search Direct is helpful or not.