In efforts to make the Yahoo! search engine more efficient and get you faster and more precisely to where you need to go, Yahoo! is testing out a new private Beta search engine that allows users to customize search result listings. Like Facebook, users create applications that other users can can install too. Users can customize titles and descriptions, as well as images, deep links, and key/value pairs of search results.

In order to create an application, users can choose which URL structure they want to get results from (such as “*.crunchbase.com/company/* where the asterisks allow wildcard matching at the beginning and/or end of your URL pattern. That example pattern would be used to customize search results for all company pages on CrunchBase”. Next, users can choose how they want their search results to be displayed among the 16 basic data base fields provided by Yahoo!. Such possibilities include those mentioned above, as well as less useful fields like size, language, and position.

Such new technology is moving search engines in a more personalized, and potentially social, direction. Users can get more specific results how they want it and from where they want it. Perhaps users can also be search others in the future, creating a whole new dimension to the online social networking phenomenon that is sure to make advertising for website companies much more targeted and lucrative.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/yahoo-open-search-platform-launches-into-private-beta/