08 September 2004 | Author: Andrew Girdwood Head of Strategy

Yahoo beta tests travel search engine

Earlier this year Yahoo bought FareChase, a travel search company. Last night the beta test of the travel search engine went live.

The beta test allows people to search fifty travel sites. The numbers are tiny, Google and Yahoo's main search engines have indexes of billions - this travel search engine only looks at fifty. The difference is that the travel search engine checks in real time. Whereas the main stream search engines explore the web and build their index up in advance (which can result in pages being months hold before you see them) the travel search gets fresh results every time.

We're pleased to note that the beta test is not restricted to only American destinations and departure points. The airlines in the system, though, are predictably American bias. Previously search engines' testing of local search matches has been restricted to United States geography.

The travel search engine continues the theme of specialised searches. Users are already used to individual search engines for looking for news, images, newsgroups and increasingly shopping. It's interesting to note the speculation that one of the major search engines is considering buying one of the main recruitment / career vacancy sites.

The site can be found at: http://yahoo.farechase.com / travelmate / home.jsp

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