Professional Ajax, 2nd Edition

7.5. Web Search with RSS

With the ever-expanding technology of the Web, conventional search engines are opening the doors to more unconventional means to get you to the content you desire. The first to jump onto the scene was Yahoo! with their Y!Q service (http://yq.search.yahoo.com/publisher/index.html). This new service enables developers to embed search functionality into any web page. Y!Q provides search results related to the content of the page, giving readers more information without leaving the page.

The Y!Q service is a great idea, but it hasn't surfaced without criticism. The main argument? It requires the use of Yahoo!'s JavaScript, and you have to add a <form/> element meeting the Yahoo! requirements to perform a search. For many web site authors, it takes too much effort to use the service. And after all the work, the search results are presented in the Yahoo! style, breaking the look and feel of the web site.

Thankfully, Yahoo! isn't the only search engine breaking into this type of service. MSN Search (http://search.msn.com) provides a similar service, but it also enables the web developer to control the look, feel, and implementation. This ability comes from MSN Search providing RSS versions of its search results, making it possible to subscribe to a particular search or add the results to your page using Ajax methods.

In mid-2006, Google also jumped into competition for "search from your site" functionality, releasing Google BlogSearch (http://blogsearch.google.com ...