From Wendy Boswell,
Your Guide to Web Search.
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Yahoo is a search engine,subject directory, and web portal. Yahoo provides good search results powered by their own search engine database, along with many other Yahoo search options, such as Yahoo Reference Search, or, for an even more complete list, check out the Ultimate Yahoo Search List, my attempt to write down all in one place all the Yahoo search options.

Yahoo Search Options

• Yahoo: main web portal and general jumping off point. You can access all the big Yahoo search options here, such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Music, Yahoo News, etc.
• Yahoo Search: Yahoo's main page dedicated only to search; you can access this from the web portal as well, but this page offers a more streamlined look.
• Yahoo Directory: Yahoo's subject directory page. Yahoo is one of the oldest directories on the Web, and this is a very large directory.

Yahoo Home Page

Yahoo offers many search options on its search portal page; including the capacity to search the Web, search for images only, search in the Yahoo Directory (this gathers results from the human edited subject directory, as opposed to the main search engine driven results page), search locally,search news, and go shopping.

In addition, you can look at local weather results, upcoming movies, the Marketplace, and Yahoo International. Yahoo's home page is pretty crowded but it has a lot to offer. I've used Yahoo for many moons now; for their great Yahoo Mail service and for the My Yahoo search options.

Yahoo Search Tips

• Be concise. Because Yahoo’s results are both from a human edited directory and its own search engine, your results may not be as targeted as you might like them to be. Narrowing down your search to a few specific keywords will help. You can also try these Yahoo Search Shortcuts to help you get the absolute most out of Yahoo.
• Use the “Search Views”. Yahoo’s main search page has tabs with various search view link, such as Images, Video, Directory, etc. that will help you to refine your search even further. For instance, if you want to look for a Weird Al video, by all means, click on the Yahoo Video tab. Your search results will be accomplished a lot more efficiently.
• Use Yahoo Keywords. If you want quick, specific results, you can usually get them by targeting keywords that Yahoo gives out as “shortcuts” to find what you want. You can find this shortcut and more in my article titled Yahoo Shortcuts, and believe me, it does save a lot of time.

More About Yahoo Search

Yahoo has a LOT to offer searchers. Here's a few articles about Yahoo that can help you explore what's out there:

• Yahoo Cheat Sheet: Here are the top Yahoo Search Shortcuts that will make your Yahoo search experience fast, fun, and ultimately efficient. You'll find that using these Yahoo Search Shortcuts will greatly cut down on your Yahoo search time, and you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much good stuff that Yahoo has to offer with just a few simple commands.
• Ultimate Yahoo Search List - Not Just A Subject Directory and Search Engine: There are many special Yahoo search properties that are not part of its searchable subject index and search engine listings. Here are a few, including Yahoo Music, Yahoo News, Yahoo Games, etc.
• Yahoo Reference Search - Gray's Anatomy, Spanish Dictionary, World Factbook, etc: Yahoo has a plethora of great reference materials available for pretty much anything you want to look up. Here are just a few of the great resources that Yahoo Reference and Yahoo Education have to offer.