Yahoo! Search BOSS

BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is Yahoo!'s open search web services platform. The goal of BOSS is simple: to foster innovation in the search industry. Developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to build and launch web-scale search products that utilize the entire Yahoo! Search index. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!'s investments in crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure. By combining your unique assets and ideas with our search technology assets, BOSS is a platform for the next generation of search innovation, serving hundreds of millions of users across the Web.

How Do I Get Started?

1. Check out BOSS specs and mash-up examples below
2. Review the documentation and technical spec sheet (PDF)
3. Get a BOSS Application ID

Using the API or Web Service

Overview

Search APIs are nothing new, but typically they've included rate limits, strict terms of service regarding the re-ordering and presentation of results, and provided little or no opportunity for monetization. These constraints have limited the innovation and commercial viability of new search solutions.

BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is different; it's a truly open API with as few rules and limitations as possible. With BOSS, developers and start-ups now have the technology and infrastructure to build next generation search solutions that can compete head-to-head with the principals in the search industry. BOSS will grow and evolve with a focus on providing additional functionality, tools, and data for developers.

	Previously Available with Yahoo! Search API	Available with BOSS
Queries Per Day	5,000	Unlimited*
No Restrictions on Presentation
Re-Ordering Allowed
Blending of Proprietary and Yahoo! Search Content Allowed
Key Terms / Query Suggestions
White-Label	Attribution Required

* BOSS offers developers unlimited daily queries, though Yahoo! reserves the right to limit unintended usage, such as automated querying by bots. In the near future, we will be introducing a fee structure for BOSS. For more infomation, please see the Fee Structure section below.

Why We Launched BOSS

Vik Singh, architect of BOSS, talks about why Yahoo! launched an open search platform and how to get started using it.

Examples

hakia

hakia, a leading semantic search engine, uses Yahoo! Search BOSS to accelerate its semantic analysis of the Web by accessing the vast amounts of web documents in the Yahoo! Search index.

OneRiot

OneRiot is a social search engine that finds the pulse of the web - the news, videos and products that people are talking about right now. Thanks to the constant help of its 2-million strong community, OneRiot's search results are fresh and relevant.

Daylife

Daylife To-Go is a new self-service, hosted publishing platform from Daylife. Anyone can use this platform to automatically generate 100% customizable pages and widgets. Daylife To-Go uses the BOSS API platform to power its Web search module.

Cluuz

Cluuz generates easier to understand search results through patent pending semantic cluster graphs, image extraction, and tag clouds. The Cluuz analysis is performed in real-time on results returned from BOSS API.

Terms of Use

Use of this service is subject to the BOSS API Terms of Use.

Support and Community

Questions and suggestions regarding BOSS are discussed on the Yahoo! Search BOSS Group. If you have questions or need technical support, please use this forum.

Learn More

BOSS Mashup Framework

The BOSS Mashup Framework is an experimental python library that provides developers with tools for mashing up the BOSS API with other third-party data sources.

SearchMonkey Structured Data

Click here to learn more about using BOSS to access structured data indexed by Yahoo! as part of SearchMonkey.

Yahoo! Sponsored Search Ads for BOSS

As described here, we are now offering Yahoo! Sponsored Search ads for BOSS through our partner DDC. Developers can now apply at the DDC site to participate in this program. In order to participate, you will need to provide some details about your product, including information about your traffic sources, UI framework, and implementation. Once your product is approved, you will be able to deploy Yahoo! Sponsored Search ads to generate revenue.

Please note that in signing up for the Sponsored Search ad program, you will be entering into a contract with DDC, not Yahoo!, and DDC will handle all ad-related financial payments and support. We may bring other Yahoo! Search BOSS ad partners online in the future, so please stay tuned for updates!

Fee Structure

BOSS is currently offered to developers free of charge. In the future, we will introduce a fee structure, though we will continue to offer free API access below a certain query-per-day threshold. For more information on BOSS API fees, please click here.