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Yahoo adds fancy Facebook links to search results

If you're searching for someone on Yahoo and they're also on Facebook, you'll see new Facebook-centric options on top of their search results.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn

On Thursday Yahoo rolled out deeper integration with Facebook as part of its SearchMonkey open semantic program. Now, when a person's public Facebook profileshows up in search results, there's a list of options on top that let you add them as a friend, send them a message, poke them, and see who they're friends with.

This (obviously) only works on Facebook profiles that have been made available for indexing by search engines, something Facebook introduced in late 2007. Users also have the option to opt out of getting their profiles indexed entirely.

One thing you can do to improve seeing someone's profile at the top of Yahoo results is add "on Facebook" to your search, as that's how Facebook formats the listing. In most cases, simply adding that brought up the person's Facebook listing to the top where it was otherwise showing up on the second or third result pages.


Instead of just a link to the person's profile, you now get quick links to various actions for Facebook. If you're signed into Facebook already, these options hop you right to the action. CNET Networks