WebProNews

Yahoo is making a foray into the area of contextual search with the launch of their new utility Y!Q.

After installing the Y!Q DemoBar, users will be able to search topics on the fly by simply highlighting and clicking the toolbar's Related Search button. Users are then to taken to a Yahoo SERP containing results relevant to the highlighted words.

Not only can web surfers use Y!Q, but Yahoo also designed the utility so that it can be imbedded into personal and professional web sites. According to Yahoo:

Y!Q helps improve the "stickiness" of your site by providing related search results directly within your site web pages. Just embed Y!Q tags into your web pages and you empower your users to learn more about your content without leaving your site. Their search results will be directly related to whatever topic you specify and the results will be overlaid directly onto your pages.

A quick peek at the company's blog site reveals the motivation behind Y!Q. Yahoo's contextual search tool can also be used in Firefox with a little tweaking. Wisely, Yahoo does provide instructions on how to incorporate Y!Q into Firefox.

Y!Q is a free utility and is supposedly Mac compatible, according to John Battelle. But, the Y!Q site makes no mention of using the tool on an Apple machine. In fact, the download disclaimer says: Requires Microsoft Windows 95 and up; Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and up

Clarification: Y!Q works with Mac by integrating it through Firefox. Thanks to Ben Rowland for the heads up.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.