Introduction to OpenSearch
– OpenSearch is a collection of technologies for publishing search results in a syndication and aggregation format.
– It was introduced in 2005 as a way for websites and search engines to publish search results in a standard and accessible format.
– OpenSearch was developed by Amazon.com subsidiary A9 and unveiled by Jeff Bezos in March 2005.
– The OpenSearch specification is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
– Draft versions of OpenSearch 1.1 were released in September and December 2005.
Support for OpenSearch
– Web browsers that support OpenSearch include Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and Google Chrome.
– Mozilla has indicated that they will deprecate OpenSearch search addons in favor of WebExtensions search addons.
– As of December 5, 2019, search engine add-ons for Firefox powered by OpenSearch have been removed from Mozilla Add-ons.
Design of OpenSearch
– OpenSearch consists of OpenSearch Description files, OpenSearch Query Syntax, OpenSearch RSS/Response, OpenSearch Aggregators, and OpenSearch Auto-discovery.
– OpenSearch Description Documents list search result responses for the given website/tool.
– Version 1.1 of the specification allows for multiple responses in any format, including HTML.
– Auto-discovery of an OpenSearch Description Document is available from both HTML and Atom/RSS feed documents.
– OpenSearch Description Documents must be served with the application/opensearchdescription+xml Internet media type.
Alternatives to OpenSearch
– Mozilla Firefox offers a bookmark keyword feature that replaces terms typed in the address bar following the initial keyword.
– Sherlock is an alternative software to OpenSearch.
Related Concepts
– Representational State Transfer (REST)
– GraphQL
– OpenURL
– Search/Retrieve via URL (SRU)
– Z39.50
OpenSearch is a collection of technologies that allow the publishing of search results in a format suitable for syndication and aggregation. Introduced in 2005, it is a way for websites and search engines to publish search results in a standard and accessible format.
 Example of a web page which offers to add a new search plugin. With Firefox, the symbol of the currently selected search engine becomes bluish. The user can add the search engine offered by that page by clicking the triangle. | |
| Internet media type | application/opensearchdescription+xml |
|---|---|
| Developed by | Amazon.com |
| Initial release | March 15, 2005 |
| Latest release | 1.1 Draft 6 December 6, 2005 |
| Type of format | Web syndication |
| Extended from | RSS |
| Open format? | Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 |
| Website | github |
OpenSearch was developed by Amazon.com subsidiary A9 and the first version, OpenSearch 1.0, was unveiled by Jeff Bezos at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference on 15 March 2005. Draft versions of OpenSearch 1.1 were released during September and December 2005. The OpenSearch specification is licensed by A9 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
