BANGALORE, INDIA – Yahoo has chosen India for the beta test of its new search concept that aggregates text, images, and video results on a single results page.
The Glue Pages Beta currently works for select search terms across select categories such as health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology, and finance.
Glue Pages results are displayed alongside the usual Yahoo India search results.
India was selected for the beta of Glue Pages because it is an important market for Yahoo, has a growing number of new users, plentiful local content, and a large number of developers who can develop applications around Yahoo’s technologies, said Tapan Bhat, a senior vice president at Yahoo.
Yahoo also has a key research and development center in Bangalore, India.
Although mail is still the dominant application for Yahoo users in India, search is also becoming very important, said Gopal Krishna, head of audience at Yahoo India.
When Yahoo studied user behavior it found that for navigational searches, the current user experience is good enough, Bhat said. But the user experience still leaves a lot of scope for improvement and innovation, and Glue Pages is a step in that direction by pulling together the best information on the Web all in one page, he added.
The search terms supported on Glue Pages are currently confined to terms more commonly searched for by Indian users. Besides Yahoo content sources such as Yahoo Health and Yahoo Answers, the company has signed up with third-party content providers, both from India and abroad. A link on a Glue Page allows content providers to apply to have their Web site published on a Yahoo India Search Glue Page.
If the beta is successful, then Yahoo will roll out Glue Pages in other countries as well, Bhat said.
