This presentation provides an introduction Yahoo! BOSS API

1. Build your Own Search Service
Saurabh Sahni
Developer, hacker, evangelist
Yahoo! HackU IIIT Hyderabad | 22nd Jan 2010

2. Outline
• About BOSS API
– What?
– Why?
– Features
• What can be built with the BOSS API?
• How to use it
– BOSS API
– Code example
– BOSS Mashup framework

3. About BOSS API

4. What?
• Open Yahoo’s core search features via
web services to let 3rd parties
revolutionize Search
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss

5. Opening the search technology stack
Assist Rank
EXTRACT
CRAWL SPAM <-> Gold Usage Retrieve
Web Map
Analyze
Index Index

6. Opening the search technology stack
Your App here
WEB API
Assist Rank
EXTRACT
CRAWL SPAM <-> Gold Usage Retrieve
Web Map
Analyze
Index Index

7. Why?
• Removes entry barriers
• Asset to Innovate
– Develop new relevance models
– Change presentation style
• Search anywhere
– Improve Vertical Quality with Web comprehensiveness

8. BOSS API features
• No branding or attribution
• Ability to change presentation style
• Ability to re-order results and blend-in additional
content
• Access to multiple verticals (web search, image,
news)
• Keyword suggestions, spell checks
• Semantic data, in-links, abstracts
• Ability to monetize

9. What can be built with the
BOSS API?

10. middlespot.com
10

11. Inquisitor: Browser Extenstion
11

12. Cluuz: http://cluuz.com

13. Keyword finder - http://keywordfinder.org/

14. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/

15. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/

16. askBOSS: http://ask-boss.appspot.com/

17. Webmeme: http://www.webmeme.in
17

18. How to use it?

19. Get Started
• Register for an application id
http://developer.yahoo.com/wsregapp/

20. Get Started…
• Documentation
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/
boss_guide/
• Code samples: Javascript, PHP and
Python
http://www.saurabhsahni.com/boss-
examples.zip

21. BOSS Search API Interface
http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/{vert}/v1/{query}
• {query}: term to look for (url-encoded)
• {vert} := {web, news, images, spelling}
• @ required
– appid
• @ optional
– start, count, lang, region, format, callback,
sites, view

22. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Slumdog_Millionaire_poster.jpg)

23. BOSS API
• Search for avatar:
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/
avatar?appid=xyz&format=xml

24. BOSS API: XML response
h"p://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/avatar?appid=xyz&format=xml

25. Site Restrict Search
• Search for avatar on selected movie
sites
– Add param
sites=indiatimes.com,movies.yahoo.com,i
mdb.com
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/avatar?
appid=xyz&sites=imdb.com
%2Cmovies.yahoo.com&format=xml

26. Site Restrict Search

27. Search images
• http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/images/v1/
avatar?dimensions=large

28. http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/images/v1/
avatar

29. Search News
• http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/news/v1/
avatar?age=15d

30. Code Example
Movie Search

32. Movie Search Code Example

33. http://www.saurabhsahni.com/boss-examples.zip

34. More with
BOSS API

35. Related keywords
Add parameter view=keyterms
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/avatar?
appid=xyz&view=keyterms&format=xml

36. http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web/v1/avatar
&appid=xyz&view=keyterms&format=xml

37. Semantic Data
• Access structured data acquired through
SearchMonkey

38. Semantic Data
view=searchmonkey_feed view=searchmonkey_rdf
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/stuctureddata.html

39. Long abstracts
• Add parameter abstract=long
– get up to 300 characters instead of 130

40. Spell Check
http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/spelling/v1/avataar?
format=xml
Response

41. Site Explorer
• Get page inlinks
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/se_inlink/v1/
{URL}?appid={APPID}
• Page data: collection of subpages in a
domain
– http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/se_pagedata/v1/
{URL}?appid={APPID}

42. BOSS Mashup Framework
• Python (v2.5+) library
• BOSS Search SDK plus …
• SQL for remixing arbitrary XML/JSON sources
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/mashup.html

43. BMF + Google App Engine
• Enhanced version of BMF to GAE platform
• http://zooie.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/yahoo-boss-google-app-
engine-integrated/
• Enables quick deployment of BOSS
applications online

44. More BOSS Implementations
• http://mashable.com/boss/
• http://delicious.com/tag/bossmashup
• Add yours by tagging it with
“bossmashup” on
Del.icio.us!

45. One more thing…
One more thing…

46. BOSS in Academic Research
• The biggest dataset available on web
• Very useful for Web-mining research
experiments
– Natural language processing
– Semantic extraction
– Related keywords
– Similarity detection
– Clustering algorithms
– Spelling corrections

47. Questions?
Learn more at:
http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/
Slides at:
http://www.slideshare.net/saurabhsahni/

48. Appendix

49. Search UI Templates in BOSS Mashup Framework
BOSS Mashup Framework simplifies aggregating and presenting
multiple data sources

50. BMF Features
• select, group, sort, union, joins, udfs, where
• Text normalization and duplicate removal
• All-in-memory storage and retrieval
operations
• Ability to join lists of tables via an
arbitrary predicate function (map-like)
• Search UI template framework
• Single search function provides total access to
BOSS REST API