Re: Y! BOSS Search

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 07:12, Stewart Lord <stewey@ambitious.ca> wrote: > Hi Hannes, > > I haven't forgotten about this issue and I've been looking at it on and off. > > Unfortunately, I do not see how to use either the BOSS API or YQL to filter > by arbitrary data - only by full-text keyword search. > > It is possible to limit BOSS results to those pages that contain specific > microformats; however, you cannot search specific fields within the > microformats. In other words, the search still applies to the entire page.. > > Using YQL you can query against microformats at a particular URL, but not > across an entire site. YQL also supports querying against a search.web > table, but it does not appear to expose any additional functionality over > and above what is provided by BOSS. In other words, it is also limited to > fulltext search. > > The technology that TechCrunch used to build their custom search is called > "BOSS Custom" or "Vertical Lens" and does not appear to be publicly > available: > > "BOSS vertical lens is currently available to certain Yahoo! partners – but > we're working to share the technology more openly through the BOSS API. If > you are interested in building a search product using BOSS vertical lens > technology, please email us here." > > http://www.ysearchblog.com/2008/11/26/search-the-web-through-a-vertical-lens/ > Sara: This (BOSS vertical lens) seems to still be in "private beta". Could you see if we can get access to it? -Hannes