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Yahoo Search Assist expands on a person's query to suggest additional relevant searches and concepts for the searches they perform.

Yahoo Gives An Assist To Search

The search box on Yahoo has been offering search suggestions for the queries people make. Type a few letters and a box of suggestions appears, with clickable links to results for each suggestion.

Tim Mayer announced on the Yahoo Search blog how they have expanded on these suggestions with Search Assist:

Yahoo! Search Assist kicks it up a notch, bringing those suggestions to the search results page, along with related concepts that give users a point-and-click query refinement capability that enables them to explore a subject area they may be unfamiliar with.

Search 'united nations,' for example, and the new Search Assist knows that the following concepts are related to your query: general assembly, 1945, league of nations, secretary general, etc.

The popularity of online video has been acknowledged in this update to Yahoo Search. Mayer said search results that include links to videos provides an inline video player, so the viewer can go ahead and watch the video right away.

Search Assist complements Yahoo's search results well. The ability to refine a query quickly with Search Assist is an improvement over paging through search results to find the one that fits best.