Changes to Answers Search
fter receiving your feedback on Search within Answers we’re pleased to announce some major changes to the Search experience on Yahoo! Answers.
We’ve made quite a few changes to the search functionality, so to make navigation a bit easier, we’ve broken things down for you by section, so let’s get started.
The NEW Answers search page
Let’s take you through some of the changes you’ll see:
1) We’ve now added the ability to sort results by relevance, by newest/oldest, and by fewest/most answers directly to the top of your results.
You can continue to use the left hand navigation to customize your search and we’ve made some amends to these dropdowns:
2) Added filtering by `Tied questions` to the Question Status dropdown
3) Added a new dropdown to filter by `Number of Answers
4) Changed the time options available in the Date Submitted dropdown to give you a greater range of options and to include a filter for the `last 24 hours`
5) Next to the Search Answers button you’ll notice we’ve re-added `Advanced Search` so let’s take a deeper look at that next…
Advanced Search
Advanced Search is back and gives you even more options for customizing your search.
Advanced Search allows you to filter your search using specific parameters in order for you to receive results that are more accurate. These filters are saved and added to your saved searches.
You can filter your search by using the following:
• Keyword match in: All Q&A, Questions or Best Answers.
• Category
• Location: All English questions or US questions only.
• Status: Open Questions, Questions in Voting, Tied or Resolved Questions
• Number of Answers
• Date Submitted
You can enter certain Boolean search terms in `Keywords`. These are: AND, ANDNOT, AND, OR Not sure about Boolean? Then use the `All these words`, `any of these words`, `exact phrase` or `don’t include these words` boxes and we’ll insert the Boolean commands for you.
My Saved Searches
Many of you make use of the `Saved Search` option to help you quickly find content around your specialist subjects. We’ve now enhanced this feature so from the new My Saved Search page you can now:
- Save up to 10 searches. The main pane displays the selected search in real time. The last sorting option you use is saved the next time you log in.
- Edit your searches to keep them up-to-date
- Delete your searches when you no longer need them
- Drag and drop to arrange your Saved Searches to get the most used ones at the top of the list
- Manage these searches from the new Saved Search page by editing or deleting
- Get your Saved Searches delivered as a daily digest email (see below)
- Have the Yahoo! Trending Topic of the day included in your search results. You’ll notice one search already there which you didn’t search for. We’ve given you a `trending search` to start. This is a keyword based on what is trending from Yahoo! Search. It changes on a daily basis depending on what people are talking about on the web. The trending search can be deleted to give you full control of the 10 searches you save. However, beware that once you delete the trending search it will be removed forever.
All your old saved searches will be migrated to the new My Saved Search so you might have 2 searches waiting for you.
To give you an incentive to test this feature out – as soon as you have 3 Saved Searches on your Saved Search page we will give you 20 points! However, this will only be awarded once.
How do I save my search?
You can save your search from the following areas:
• The Search homepage
• Advanced Search page
• My Saved Search page
Digest Email
We’ll soon be launching a new Digest Email that will send you an email once a day containing the top 3 questions from each of your Saved Searches. The top 3 questions are sorted by the settings you save on your My Saved Searches page, so if you only want ‘in voting’ questions then those are the questions that will be delivered to you. This will make your Answers experience more efficient since questions will be sent directly to your inbox!
For now, tick the box if you want to receive these emails and we’ll start sending out in the next few days.
We’ve left the decision on whether you want to receive this email to you. You can opt in to this email by checking the box at the bottom of the Advanced Search page or from you’re the Privacy and Communication tab on the `Edit My Preferences` page.
For those of you who bookmark your searches – we’ve respected this and it will still work. But why not use Saved Search instead of Bookmarks and get the daily email as well as the bonus points?
We’d love to hear your feedback on the new features to search. Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board. We trust you will find the new Search experience to be a useful addition to your Answers experience!
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Hi ,
Great changes you’ve made here , much appreciated .
But i have one question , why there is no Egypt blog ?
Please feed me back .
Thanks a lot.
Thank heavens…not much of a learning curve. I like being able to save more than one search. Much Thanks.
I like the changes your done but you didn’t solve some errors like:”Yahoo Answer isn’t avalaible…”;”Ops… The page you try to reach it doesn’t exist or the system is buzy.Please try again later.”.
Great!
Now, why can’t I vote this morning? I get a page where there is written “Oops” at each vote.
Search? What search? I didn’t know anybody did a search on here. If they did the same questions wouldn’t get asked a thousand times a day.
Hi.
I have a question, in the section about Latin America, why is there a category for most countries and not Colombia when Colombia is one of the most important countries in Latin America??
yay
Really a simple and easiest one than the previous.
Thanks to Yahoo!Answers Engineers.
Very nice!What I like the most is the “not” area for excluding keywords. I can now sort out “sew in weave” questions from my search for questions about sewing clothes and I can add in words that people use when they don’t know the correct terminology to use. Very helpful. Of course a separate sewing section would be even more helpful -but this does help streamline the search for relevant questions.
Thanks, have been waiting for the update so long, finally th search has been given more features. Great work Yahoo! Answers team.
This is great, but why no searching by category?
You should include searching for user profiles.
THANK YOU. I’ve been wanting the date submitted “less and sort by newest forever.
*edit …date submitted “less than 24 hours”…
It’s very inconvenient to have to go to a “my saved searches” page… and even when I do, there’s no command on that page to make them run… I don’t get it.
you should make it so that we can customize our pages by changing the colors and stuff, like you can do on the regular yahoo homepage
)
Could you please allow users to search only within their own questions? Similar to how you can search within your own videos on YouTube?
i dont get it
Thanks for the update on ‘search’ options. As an added advice (if you would allow me), I would suggest try to see how Eudora has been successful in “Search” segment when giants like Windows Live, Yahoo! and Gmail are still having very limited ‘search’ options in their respective mailboxes
You can try the following website to see if you can access the Eudora Mail:
http://jump.eudora.com/jump.cgi?action=site&product=Eudora&version=7.1.0.9&la=en&platform=Windows_XP_Service_Pack_2
Thanks to Y!AT for making search options more dynamic and productive too.
Have a nice day!
You did some great changes! But i have a problem with yahoo. Im just wondering when you will fix the yahoo profile link, because the box doesnt show when i click edit my prefrences and go down to privacy. Hope you fix this problem soon so i can show my profile page again.
~Jet~
I noticed that there is a limit to the number of words you can exclude. The previous search options did not have this issue. Is this a known bug with a planned fix?
thanks yahoo, made searching more easy for us
Philip Augustus
Great update Yahho Answer! But why can not I access the class when I go to Brazil Yahho Response site does not appear. The page is blank but other categories of countries appears. Thank you in reviewing this issue.
@ Felipescc
All wonderful stuff but until you stop allowing level one and level two accounts from being able to report violations this site will continue to be controlled by trolls and will never be anything that can be taken seriously.
Now it needs to be fixed again. SOmetimes when I do a search, it brings up hundreds of questions that aren’t even related to what I was searching for.
I hope it works.
I’ve been on here for a few years and it seems recently within the last 6 months-year (I’m guessing when you made these “changes”) the search feature has been garbage. I could type an inquiry into the YA search and nothing will come up. Yet if I were to type that same inquiry into Google about 6 links down I will see a buttload of results.. from YA!!!
In other words some how YA has completely messed up when it comes to getting results. I always get the page “no results found” when like I said using Google clearly there are results right here on YA. I hope this is fixed because at one point I could always find the results here.
How do i save a answer when answers say it’s out of service after i spent about 30 plus minutes researching to answer a question?
thank you, apparently i hit a button without realizing it.
I must be tired better quit for now.
Not going to lie this honestly is no diferent from before. Just a new format and the tiniest amount of new things.
Having trouble importing my updated avatar to all the Yahoo related apps I have. Suggestions. Thx.
will you help me with questions
Can ya’ll add a new (search feature “button”) that keeps the search you’ve selected?
For example: I’ll search: “How do you take pictures?”, and choose: “Question Status: Open Questions”, but when I go to search: “How do you develop film?”, the “Question Status” will change from: “Open Questions”, to: “All Questions”.
I’d greatly appreciate this new (search feature “button”).
Sounds good! Now,with all these “changes”,do ya think you can reinstate me back on Yahoo Answers?
Still totally useless for my needs. I want to search MY OWN Q&A. I have almost 10,000 answers, and the same questions come up all the time. I know I have a well-written, well-researched response, if only I knew where it was.
It stupid not to have searchable access for your own stuff.