Yahoo! Canada Answers Blog

Over the past few weeks we’ve made several exciting new changes to the overall Answers experience including changes to the look and feel of the site, as well as a new search experience  for Yahoo! Answers.

While these changes have taken place, many of you have had questions about where we have relocated your favorite features, and what changes lie ahead. Below you’ll find some of the most commonly asked questions and their answers.

Q: Previously, I could click on “My Profile” to go straight to my profile page. This link is gone—how do I get to this page now?

A: To easily access your profile page, you can either click on your name next to the “Hello” message, or, click on the “My Activity” tab to jump straight to your profile.

Q: Below my name there’s now an “invite your friends” link—what does this do?”

A:   Clicking on the “Invite your friends” link allows you to easily invite any of your friends to join you on Yahoo! Answers.  From this page, you can easily enter in the email addresses of your family and friend and encourage them to join you on Answers—that way if you’ve recently asked a question on Answers and think your Aunt Sally may know the Answer but know she’s not on Answers, you can easily get her on board, and, get her to answer your question!

Please note that if you’re a Level 1 member, instead of seeing “invite your friends” you’ll instead see a link reading, “What are points and levels?,” encouraging you to learn more about Answers. For members who are level 2 and higher, you’ll be seeing this link added in under the “About” tab in the near future.

Q: How do I see my suggested questions?

A: If you have suggested questions, they’ll show up on your homepage as they did before. Currently, we don’t have a message in place that tells you “there are no suggested questions available at this time” but we’re looking to add this back in the near future.

Q: How do I see my recent activity details?

A: To see your recent activity details, just click on the “My Activity” tab—from here, you can see your activity summary, your activity details, as well as your questions, answers, starred questions and your watchlist.

Also from this page, you can easily click on the “Edit My Preferences” link to edit the content found within your Answers profile, or, if you’re elsewhere on the Answers site, just hover back on the “My Activity” tab and click on the “Edit My Preferences” link to be taken to the same edit screen.

Q: Now that you’ve changed the look and feel of Answers, what’s next?

A: We always have a few tricks up our sleeve, so be on the lookout for new things heading your way. In the meantime, we still love hearing your thoughts about the new homepage and the changes to search, so please keep the constructive feedback coming!

If you have additional “how-to” questions about the new homepage or search, or, just want to tell us what you think, please leave a comment below or stop by the Suggestion Board!

Great news! Since we launched Yahoo! Answers, over 1 billion questions and answers have been posted from across the world. It’s a huge number but the way we see it, it’ s a true testimony of how great of a community-driven knowledge website Answers is.

Did you know that:
•    The Answers community counts over 179 million users. That’s more than half the population in the United States!
•    Yahoo! Answers is available in 26 markets and is translated in 12 languages. From English to Japanese, we’ve got you covered!
•    Every day, an average  of 15 million users visit the site. That’s how many people visit Disneyland every year!

As we strive to make Answers the best source to find and share information, we always take your feedback into account and greatly appreciate your efforts in helping us fight abuse. Remember to regularly visit our blog for announcements and advice on how to make the best out of Answers. We thank all of you for helping us reach that landmark.

How can we improve your experience on Answers?

It happens sometimes. You post a question and get no answer or you just can’t find that ‘best answer’.  Here’s a quick reminder of how you can save points while getting the best out of your questions:

•    Once your question is open for business, you can always add details. Just hover your mouse over the Edit (pencil icon) in the action bar below the question to add details.

•    Instead of asking the same question again, why not to give the community more time to answer? You have the option to extend the expiration of your question by 4 days- plenty of time to increase your chance at getting the answer you are looking for. Since your question is initially  given four days to be resolved, extending it means 8 days to get an answer. At the end of the 8 days, you will either have to pick a best answer or put your question up for voting. You will not be able to extend it any further. To extend the open period for your question, hover your mouse over the ‘edit’ section and  select Extend Expiration from the option menu.

•    If your question does not get an answer and expires, it will disappear. If this happens, you can try looking through answers for a similar question that was resolved or you can post your question again. However, think before asking again: did you give enough details? Was the question written clearly? Try to give as many hints as possible to your potential answerers!

•    And finally, a tip for a super question: pick the best answer. It’s a great way to reward that person who took some time to give you a brilliant answer to your question… Who doesn’t love a bit of an ego boost from time to time