Yahoo! Search Web Services

Yahoo! Search Web Services allow you to access Yahoo! content and services in your favorite programming languages. This means you can now build Yahoo! directly into your own applications. Get more ideas for what you can build by playing with the applications and mashups featured in our Search Application Gallery.

How Do I Get Started?

1. Read the online documentation and FAQs.

2. Get an Application ID

   To access Yahoo! Search web services, you will need to get an application ID. Like a browser's User-Agent string, the Application ID uniquely identifies your application and has no effect on rate limiting.

3. Download the SDK

   The development kit includes BSD licensed examples and libraries for various languages: Perl, Python and PHP, Java, JavaScript, and Flash.

Using the Search Web Service

Overview

You can write applications with Yahoo! Search Web Services using data from:

Tools and Documentation

Yahoo! Search Web Services operate via HTTP requests just like your web browser. Requests are formed by starting with a service entrypoint URL (such as http://search.yahooapis.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearchfor web search queries) and adding query arguments to specify the search results desired (such as ?query=Madonna). The results returned by the service are in XML which varies per service. Your programs can use these services by submitting a request, fetching the response, and parsing the returned XML to extract the information you need. Alternately, you may use the provided SDK APIs to handle the protocol specifics for you. Each service accepts a different set of query arguments and produces differently structured XML responses. See the service documentation for the specifics on each.

The following information applies to all of our Search Web Services:

• Constructing Requests
• Understanding Rate Limiting
• Service Versioning
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Error Messages

Rate Limits

Yahoo! imposes two technical requirements on usage of these services. First, we require that each application that uses these APIs use an Application ID. This Application ID must be sent with each request in the 'appid' parameter. Second, we limit the frequency by which any computer may access these services. These rate limits are imposed independently for each service and are typically in the thousands-per-day per user range. See each service's documentation for the individual limits.

See our Usage Policy page for more guidance in using Yahoo! Web Services, including information about acceptable uses, attribution requirements, and how to request additional queries.