OpenSearch

In OpenSearch is an XML-based set of techniques that allows to output search results of search engines and websites in a standardized and machine-readable format. OpenSearch was developed by Amazon.com and A9.com and presented in March 2005. The OpenSearch specification has been licensed by A9 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5.

Construction

OpenSearch consists of two main elements:

  • An OpenSearch description file. This is an XML file that describes how to access a search engine or web site, for example, in the form of a browser plugin. The OpenSearch description file contains a detailed documentation of the search service, its content in free text description and many other details ( ex. language, censorship, text encoding), details on request-URL and the name and the attribute fields of the search ( the search string, the number of required results, page presentation, access page ). A URL to the OpenSearch Description describes completely so that the search service.
  • A building on RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 search result output format that is used to output the search results. The OpenSearch output can be represented using any RSS feed reader. However, the output format includes additional information about the search result with one that is not provided in the RSS format and are therefore not represented by general feed readers. The additional attributes are embedded in an OpenSearch namespace in RSS. These attributes are, for example search result typical information such as: number of total results of the search, number of results per page, index position of the first search result on the delivered page.

Browsers that support OpenSearch

  • Internet Explorer (version 7)
  • Mozilla Firefox version 2.0
  • Camino (from version 1.6)
  • QupZilla
  • rekonq
  • Google Chrome
  • Safari (version 5.1 ) with the extension OpenSearch for Safari

Implementations of OpenSearch

Using the example of Mozilla Firefox, a possible implementation of OpenSearch is demonstrated.

The integration of a new search engine can be displayed and offered on websites, the Auto - Discovery feature. Looking at such a page, the offer, the new search engine will add to the existing search engines, indicated by a blue discoloration of the currently selected search engine symbol ( see illustration).

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