Yahoo Mindset - The Power of Choice

A new search option from Yahoo Research, Mindset brings a very simpley yet very useful addition to search - a slider that allows you tell the engine if you're shopping or doing research. As you move the slider, the results change in real time. Very cool and very handy. And a big change for the world of organic search optimization.

Andrew at Traffik as already posted a good analysis of the long term implications for SEO practitioners. The one point I'd add is that if 'gaming the engines' gets harder, then it's even more important to actually be useful and relevant to people who are searching - whether they're doing research, price comparison, looking for reviews, etc. I've believed for some time that we've crossed the line where it's now easier to just win honestly than it is to play all the SEO games. Developments like Mindset make this even more true for the reasons Andrew points out.

InsideGoogle has a chart comparing the different results as you slide. (Why's that at InsideGoogle?)

Greg Linden (via SearchBlog) points out both the Google and MSN similar research projects. But he thinks the 'fail the grandma test':

I'm surprised to see this focus on sliders. They aren't particularly useful. They fail the grandma test. Most novice users will not use or understand the slider; they just want the top result to be useful. It's not even that useful to power users since sliders fail to provide the level of granularity they need.

I disagree, but more importantly think that with everyone in the world (almost literally) searching these days, we can't have search engines only aimed at Grandma. I like the simplicity of the Yahoo approach even though I myself might like (and use) 3-5 different sliders (grandma I ain't). But I think their decision to just have one, and have it offer such clearly different choices is a good one that most users will understand and come to appreciate.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at May 28, 2005 03:24 PM